


Precipice

by crystalrequiem



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Blood, Cannon Ashura madness, Cannon-typical death, Celes Arc, Depression, Fai's Vampirism is still a thing, Graphic injuries, Harm to Children, Impalement, M/M, NSFN, Rampant Headcannoning, Strangulation, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Unreliable Narrator, dead bodies, not safe for newbies, suicide (kind of)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalrequiem/pseuds/crystalrequiem
Summary: Celes is more than it seems, and Fai gets his wish a few too many times.(In which Fai loses his mind and finds a few other things instead-over and over and over again)
Relationships: Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane, Kurofai - Relationship
Comments: 21
Kudos: 58





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so… SO. I got assigned Team Fluff for KuroFai Olympics 2020
> 
> But there was this other idea I had and got about 10k into before I realized I absolutely could not use it for Team Fluff. 
> 
> You’re welcome. 
> 
> It’s not done yet, but it is at the very least, outlined. Plan is to release chapters about one every one to two weeks. We’ll see if that holds. I could use some help with motivation as I go.

* * *

The view doesn’t match his memories.

Fai stares down at the empty waste of Celes as he lingers on the ledge before Luval castle and tries to steel his fraying nerves. Only blank white and howling, frigid wind stare back. Without the illusion of the false stairs to muddle it, the view induces vertigo in moments, but that never used to bother him. Macabre, maybe, but he had always come to the castle’s ledges to clear his head back when… before. He’d spent so long trying to climb… maybe he couldn’t help finding victory in every foot of distance from the ground. Or maybe something about the clarity found in the cold, thin air used to soothe him. He can’t find either kind of solace now.

The distant lights and the trailing smoke of warmth in the village below are glaring in their absence against the backdrop of his thoughts. He faces blank, white nothing and wonders what it would feel like to jump. 

He won’t, of course. At least, not yet. He can’t die yet. Not until he sees this terrible thing through, one way or the other.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and the howl of the barren tundra devours his apology. Well enough, he supposes. He still hasn’t decided who he owes the word to, and the void doesn’t have any suggestions (save one).

Fai sinks into the feeling of cold, lets it freeze his heart and harden him against the hours to come as he banishes the siren call of certain death and returns to his fellow travelers. If he doesn’t breathe too deeply, he can even pretend it works.

* * *

“These were men of this castle?” Kurogane asks the open air, staring at the bodies that litter the stairs before the front gate like the discarded playthings of a bored god. Fai tries not to look as he passes.

“That’s right.” He agrees, gliding past the shock-stilled forms of his companions. Fear arrests him—keeps him from daring to glance at their expressions as he tries to trap his own emotions beneath an iron mask of calm. Whatever his part to come, he has a duty to lead them to Sakura. (To her body.) To— 

_Fuck,_ but he wants to walk right back to the ledge and over it.

(Not an option. He can’t die yet.)

The feel of Ashura’s magic thrums in the air as soon as his feet cross the threshold of the door, thick and cloying. Twisted as it is, some part of Fai still attributes the feeling to the sensation of coming home. He has to numb himself to it, has to pretend he can’t taste the bile rising at the back of his throat or feel the weakness in his own limbs. That magic clambers through his head like warm memories and a thousand senseless deaths Fai was too stupid to prevent. 

He focuses, one foot in front of the other as he makes his way through the entrance hall, trying not to look at the memories or the dead or the worried stares of the travelers he’s betrayed. The great hall of castle Luval is a marvel to behold on bright days, golden light streaming in through the glass of the high windows and reflecting across crystal and carefully enchanted ice. But today is not a day of gold. The grey of a blizzard casts the hall in a harsh and unforgiving light, and its crystal spires throw strange shadows over red-muddied corpses that have long begun to stink. The smell of human rot is so familiar to him that he does not feel the urge to gag. He wishes he could. (His fingers ache beneath their gloves.)

Distantly, he thinks the others might be talking. They trail only a few feet behind him, but beneath the blood rushing in his ears he can’t make out the words they say. Hopefully nothing important. “This way,” he hears himself murmur. He doesn’t wait to see whether they listen, just keeps walking.

The heat of Kurogane’s gaze sears the back of his neck. Fai doesn’t have the strength left to face him. He knows what has to happen next, but his voice is locked in his throat. If he could _tell_ them, maybe—maybe—

He does not have enough of himself to spare between panic and dread to hold on to hope. The curse forced Sakura’s end by his hand and he no longer knows which sacrifice on his behalf he owes more loyalty to. He wants to throw them both away. Isn’t that why he made sure Kurogane would always have his sword? He keeps waiting for Kurogane to understand that, almost fantasizing its bite against his neck, but the sensation never comes. (He can’t die yet.)

How ever his mind fights to paralyze him, his body moves on toward the heart of castle Luval’s magic. Past the blood-spattered curtains, into the spiraling depths of the inner stair. His former home is silent enough to count the echoes of footsteps behind him and know his companions have followed.

Once, on a whim, Fai had slid the full length of the inner stair bannister, from the living floors to the library. It had been so easy to laugh that day. Flustered guards charged with his safety had chased him all the way to the royal study.

“ _You’ll be the death of me_ ,” he remembers Ashura scolding, and with the weight of new context the memory makes him abruptly ill. Fai shutters, faltering for just a moment on the third landing (the one that should lead to the serving floor, with its heated laundering pools and workshops. It had always been the hottest floor in the castle, heating the dining hall above. It bears no stirring of warmth now.)

“Where are you leading us, mage?” the deep baritone of his supposed enemy shatters his thoughts. Fai’s neck itches.

“Down,” he says without daring to turn around, and forces himself to march anew. 

Past the training hall and the guards’ quarters, past the floor full of empty offices and the secret path to the castle’s carefully hidden treasury. On to the library—the deepest place the public had ever been permitted to go.

“Is everyone… gone?” Mokona warbles, voice loud in the unnerving still. Fai finds his throat too frozen to answer. He knows there are no bodies here only because the spells that ward Ashura’s books require no caretakers to renew them. Rows upon rows of books tower over the empty room, orderly and pristine, their wards glutted by the Sovereign’s ill-gained magical strength. 

A low roar hums through his ears. He nearly mistakes it for the clamor of his own thoughts before he feels the ground tremble.

“An earthquake?” Syaoran wonders aloud, and Fai does not know the answer. Celes has never been prone to tremors before, but who knows what effect the absence of its people might have on the soul of the world, assuming such things exist.

More likely, he thinks, the death of the architects and curators who maintained the impossible staircases and ice lattices of the floors above has starved one too many wards of their magic… If the castle crashes down on their heads before any of the confrontation to come can even begin, would that be irony, or hitsuzen? The thought makes him want to laugh, but not in any good way.

It doesn’t matter. He steps forward, toward the humming center of the castle. Footsteps jumble behind him as the others rush past their confusion to keep up. 

“Do you know where in the castle the princess is?” Kurogane’s stare has yet to grant him respite. He can’t tell what the man wants from him. Whether he wants anything at all. (Whether Fai wishes he did.)

“… yes.” He lets his heart twist itself in knots in his chest and mourns every cursed step closer because he _does_ know, with terrible certainty, where to find the princess. The heart of the castle lies deeper still, behind enchantment, beneath the research floor and the curling twist of the Narrow Stair, and nowhere near far enough away.

* * *

He doesn’t know how he thought this was going to go down, but this is worse, somehow. This—

How could he have anticipated the spell Ashura used to broadcast his memories for all to see? The worst of him—the lies at his core, the name he left behind—How—

How had Kurogane still turned and tried to help him afterward? Why had Syaoran begged him not to leave? He can’t—

Fai doesn’t know how to be a good person, or a happy one. He learned how to play act at both. He picked up the trick to wearing the skin of a full person when he had only ever been the lesser half of anything. He couldn’t kill Ashura before because he thought the sovereign had shown him kindness, but now he’s not sure he ever understood that word either.

Ashura rescued him from Valeria and let him keep the broken dream of seeing Fai alive again. Spoke with him and taught him to smile and stave away loneliness with academic distraction.

On the other hand, Kurogane had dragged him kicking and screaming to this point—fought him on every decision, couldn’t stop trying to get under Fai’s skin. He was bull-headed and opinionated and had a terrible temper and… and he spent six wordless months fighting at Fai’s side, trusted Fai to protect the group despite the whispers of his past, tied his idiot life to Fai’s just to keep him breathing. Somehow he’d gotten so close Fai had to hide himself beneath the veneer of cruelty just to keep from falling deeper, and now… Now the swordsman’s blood paints the floor, oozing from a wide rent in his side.

Another death on his conscience.

Fai learned his lesson too late, as always. He hopes his brother will forgive him, but Syaoran, Sakura and Mokona deserve better than this. Kurogane deserved better too.

“I have never been kindhearted. All I’ve been is weak!” the words echo true as his spine straightens. He should have chosen to die to let his twin live from the very beginning, should have made the same choice over and over and over again. Well, he’s making it now. (But…. He can’t die here.)

Fai doesn’t have the power he should, but he has enough magic for this—enough bitterness and rage to fuel what he lacks. His spell has no elegance and no deception to its delivery. He simply rushes Ashura from the front, a blazing bomb of his own power.

Kind of funny, really. He dreamed up this spell thinking he’d never actually use it, nothing more than a fascination with the idea of self-destruction, another way of standing on ledges and staring down. He’d designed it as a chain reaction—his magic will erupt, latch onto Ashura and sink into the core of the sovereign’s power, amplifying the explosion. If the blast doesn’t kill them, the magic exhaustion will. Fai doesn’t think he’ll last that long—he can already feel himself burning, white hot with his own magic.

Ashura’s arms are open wide. Even as Fai screams out his end, that placid face only smiles and smiles and smiles…

……………………………………………………………

……………………………………………

………………………………

…………………

……

(He can’t die yet.)

N͏̢̲̲̤͉̬̙͉̕͢o̸͚͚̥̼̱͙̤̺̹̱͠t̤͕͎̻̹̮͕͙̣̳̮͖̤̹̲̗̖̕̕͟͜ͅ ͏̡̧̣̜̦̹̗̜͈̟̬̗̗̥̙yę̵̡͓̤̤͍͈͡t̷̵̸̡̠̺ͅ.͞͏̱̺̼̫̣̺̟̰̜̭̝̠̫ͅ ̡̡̧͇̻͈̬̲͇̩͘Ņ̱͇̝͈̰̗̳͕͍̺̜̠̺͇̻̤̕ͅo̡͈̬̠͙͓̟̘̜̺͕͍͚̱͝ͅͅt̛̩̲̹͝ ̶͈̺̭̟͕͈͝y̴͓͎̺̲͡ę̵̡͓̤̤͍͈͡t̸̢̜̙̻͎̰̼͎͙̤̬̪͕̺͘͠ͅ.̨̳̗̥̜͕̩̲̙͓̫͍̟̙̱͎͔͖̟̱͘̕͠ ̵̡̟̦̗̦͡͠Ṇ̸̩̲͍̭͠͝ͅo̠̜̻̙͢͞t̸͏̧̣̰̹̭̟͔̭̱͓͉̻̣ͅ ̶̸̢͚̲̻̼͓͕̤̼̮̻͍͠y̜̥̫̥͍͠͡ȩ̶̶̧̮͙͖͕̣͙̙͙̤̜͉t̸̷̷̳̦̬̟̗͙̥-͈͚̖͍̟͔̠̠͘͜͝͞͠ͅ-̶̗͓̤̪͔̼̭̰̤̠̪̙̥͙


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah..... I'm way too impatient to just wait and publish this on the weekend. 1 is too short to properly get into anyway--so have this with the understanding that only the first four chapters are pre-written and I'm making a horrible mess for myself.

* * *

The view doesn’t match his memories.

Fai stares down at the empty waste of Celes as he lingers on the ledge before Luval castle and tries to steel his fraying nerves. Only blank white and howling, frigid wind stare back. The distant snow could blind him with its bright intensity, makes him think of an impossibly brighter flare and—

And the dream of ending his own life with a spell. An instant of indescribable pain that had seared his every nerve like lightening. What…?

He tears his gaze away from the vertigo-inducing height and looks instead at his shaking hands. The memory of agony lingers, but no trace of real damage mars him. He is whole and alone on the precipice before Luval castle, the companions he betrayed still stand by the door, waiting for him to pull himself together. None of them look dead or beaten. He can’t hear anything over the wind, but he can see them talking together as they examine the impossibly high entrance. As he watches, Kurogane tests his strength against the solid stone. No gaping wound drains his life away as the man strains fruitlessly to pull the door aside.

“A dream…?” Fai whispers, and the howl of the barren tundra devours his confusion. He’d never been prone to hallucinations, but what else could that have been? The terrible walk through empty rooms filled with nothing but echoes of the dead—the lies exposed—the cascading memories.

Kurogane’s blood a sea of red on the glittering floor at the castle’s core and Ashura’s smile as—

Fai sinks into the feeling of cold, lets it freeze his heart and harden him against the hours to come as he banishes the remnants of that terrible vision. If he doesn’t breathe too deeply, he can even pretend it works.

* * *

He doubles back, trudging through unpacked snow to reach the door to the Great Hall. The frozen bodies littering Luval’s front stair fall in the exact arrangement he remembers from his dream. His thoughts race, paralyzing him with indecision. He hasn’t crossed the threshold yet, but he has a sinking feeling he already knows how the room ahead will look.

“….Fai?” Syaoran calls, his concern earnest even though he knows Fai for a liar. (“ _No… don’t…_ ,” _he’d begged, and Fai had known then where his weaknesses truly lie_ )

No, no… That—that never happened. Had he simply dreamed it all up? Maybe... maybe Ashura hadn’t really planned all this just to use him. The memory spell is far too strange a working to be real. And surely if everything really came to light, the others would be smart enough to end him… right?

“These are people Fai knew?” Mokona coos. The construct misapprehends the source of his discomfort and clings to Syaoran, face half-buried in his neck. Syaoran himself looks pale even against the backdrop of snow, brow furrowed as he looks to the dead with dismay. Fai hadn’t given them much attention in the… dream. Vision. His thoughts had taken the sole spotlight. He has to do better than that.

“That’s right,” he agrees because the explanation makes an easy excuse. Far too close, Kurogane’s attention leaps from the door to himself. Fai doesn’t have enough time to rush forward before he catches the swordsman’s crimson gaze. It paralyzes him in place. “I—” 

What is there to say? Nothing has changed. Vision aside, he’d come along on this journey intending to betray them the whole time. He owed it to the real Fai. He still owes his brother a life, and he still has to face Ashura and the consequences of his own cursed existence. He can’t—

He can’t bear the concern he sees plain as day in Kurogane’s face.

Fai glides past the worried forms of his companions to rest his hand against the door and end the locking spell that binds it. Kurogane’s presence beside him buzzes in his unnatural awareness, but it doesn’t matter. Fai can’t allow it to matter. He can’t afford to lose his head. He breathes deep, trapping his emotions back beneath the mask of calm. He has too many promises to break before he can fall apart. (He can’t die yet)

The feel of Ashura’s magic thrums in the air as soon as his feet cross the threshold of the door, thick and cloying. The same dual sensations of nostalgia and debilitating guilt fill Fai’s head like sludge, just as they had in the dream. 

He manages to keep his composure (this time?) as he trudges in to the grey light of the Great Hall, more aware of his fellow travelers. He hears the sharp gasp that Syaoran steals as he breaches the doorway, only just manages to stop himself from turning around and looking.

“Does Syaoran have a headache?” Mokona’s usually sunny voice echoes strangely through the vaulted room.

“No…” The boy insists, and his footsteps resume. Fai bites his lip, wondering… had this happened in the dream? The Great Hall looks exactly as he remembers (last time), dead soldiers and citizens gracing every surface, their blood painting the floors and walls. The smell hits, so viscerally familiar he cannot even gag. (His fingers ache.) Maybe—maybe Syaoran had simply reacted badly to the sight?

He wants to ask. He doesn’t think he has the right to. He moves on.

“This way,” he hears himself murmur. One foot in front of the other, he keeps walking, trying not to look too closely at the faces of the dead or to feed the growing realization blooming in his thoughts. He remembers their exact positions, the macabre specificity of blood spatter with an accuracy that frightens him, and the whisper of possibility settles like a stone in his stomach.

* * *

Down the spiral of Luval’s central stair they go, all six sprawling flights. The castle has other ways to move than this, but each one requires spellwork. After bringing himself back to this hell, Fai’s magic needs all the help he can give it. So they tackle the stair on foot, no matter Fai’s long dormant urges to ride the bannister all the way down.

Kurogane’s gaze burns at the back of his neck like a brand, but Fai can’t bear to look at him and see the expression he wears. He doesn’t know whether pity or hate would hurt worse. (He prefers both to the bloodless look of death.)

The library looms at the end of the final landing, as horrifyingly immaculate and well-organized as it had been in the dream. They patter into the empty room, continuing through the rows of knowledge he meant to bury forever.

“Is everyone… gone?” Mokona warbles, voice loud in the unnerving still. Fai finds his throat too frozen to answer. The words repeat from a dream he remembers far too well, and he finally allows himself to wonder… what if it wasn’t a fantasy? What if the illusion had been a true divination? If true, then in the next few moments—

Their path stutters to a halt as a low roar hums through his ears. He could almost mistake it for the clamor of his own thoughts before he feels the ground tremble.

“An earthquake?” Syaoran wonders aloud, and Fai does not have enough breath to answer. The dream holds too true. If he does nothing, will it all play out the same way? The terrible revelations, the spell to broadcast his memories, Syaoran and Mokona in pain, Sakura used against them, Kurogane—

No. No, that’s—he can’t let that happen. He has to… he has to do something. Change _something_.

He can’t trade their lives for his twin. He knows that now, however wretched that makes him. He can’t heal Ashura and he can’t fix what his curse has wrought. But Sakura—

Sakura lies beneath the surface of the pool. If the dream is true, then he knows exactly where to find her. If he can hand her off and spell them all to the closest world…

“Mage? Something we should worry about?” Kurogane’s voice carries on the stagnant air. Fai knows he’s paused too long—he’s missing a step in the dance and that’s... good, possibly. A change. He can change things. He needs to keep them moving, keep them ignorant of his plan. Once he has them out of the castle he can self-destruct without worry.

“Yes.” His thoughts churn. He can take them a different way—enter the room at the pool’s edge, maybe reach Sakura before Ashura can try to use her. It’ll spend another precious spell, but to avoid the fate he’s already seen for them… “If the castle is unstable, we should take a different route.” Fai tries to sound as natural and toneless as possible as he turns and marches toward the private study ensconced at the library’s edge. He doesn’t pause to listen for the others. He knows now that they intend to follow to the end.

Celes had been a land of so many wonders. Counted among them, a deep study of transportation magic and movement that had only facilitated Fai’s research on dimensional travel. Mages here had paired their love of sweeping, impossible architecture with a penchant for teleportation. Spells could be cast by the wielder to move oneself from one point to another, but such workings were complex and draining. The average mage would never have enough magic to move themselves more than a few times a day. Instead, they anchored spells to “doorways,” entrances and exits that one need only feed a little magic to activate.

Devices like this pepper the research floor, often hidden in seemingly mundane places by paranoid researchers throughout the castle’s history. The fluorite stone mounted on a bare white wall in Fai’s personal study does not bother with such subtleties. Ashura had let him set it up, one of his first major workings as a full mage. He’d keyed it to his bedroom far above and… to the pool at the castle’s heart.

“Oh! This place feels more like Fai,” Mokona chirrups, a little braver without the oppressive sight of Luval’s fallen seeded throughout the room. (He wonders, distantly, whether Ashura had not fought in the precious library, or whether the wards had simply taken care of any mess.)

He doesn’t want to explain, so he keeps to himself as he leads them into his study, trying not to look too hard at the remnants of a past life scattered over every surface. Empty bottles of good wine, discarded uniform pieces, scattered reams of notes, a few gifts from the village, and the ward of protection he planned to perfect for the guard, before.... He hadn’t been able to finish it. The beast had torn through everyone too quickly.

Fai would have given the ward to Ashura first, once he had it figured out. Probably for the best.

“We can get to the princess from here,” he calls, trying not to imagine what they must think. The spare coat draped over his desk chair makes it all too obvious where they stand. He rests his hand against the cool surface of the blue fluorite stone and starts to guide his magic—only to feel a hand at his wrist.

“Fai, is it really okay for you to use this much?” Syaoran’s grip unknowingly mirrors his desperate tugging at Fai’s sleeve. Fai can’t help the bitter smile that escapes him. He has enough for this and more. He has to. Just—just get them to the pool, summon Sakura and send them away before he follows Ashura to their assured end. (But he can’t die yet...)

He doesn’t answer, just feeds his power through the stone and into the teleportation spell, lighting the room with power as the portal materializes. The look on Syaoran’s face… his eyes follow the flow of runes, their reflections patterned over his expression. Fai remembers that feeling of wonder—realizing magic had so many more uses than he’d ever dreamed before. In a kinder life, maybe Syaoran could have learned this kind of magic too. Maybe…

“What are you planning, Mage?” Kurogane sounds far more suspicious than his younger companion. (Fai has earned that suspicion several times over. It still hurts, somehow.) With a final rune and a turn of his wrist, Fai anchors the portal. He’ll leave it open. 

“Follow, or don’t,” he calls, and walks through with his head held high.

* * *

Appearing suddenly opposite Ashura’s pool changes things, but not enough.

“Welcome home, Fai,” the sovereign’s voice cuts through his thoughts like a knife as soon as he steps into the room. The illusion of a cursed child stands once again at the sovereign’s side, and Fai cannot help the bubble of wretched rage that crushes his words in his throat.

(It’s his fault, Ashura is like this. His curse—and if he’d only killed himself sooner—)

The others step through the portal behind him, far less gracefully. Fai watches the glint of cruelty flash behind Ashura’s eyes before insidious magic tethers to their forms and unspools memories from his head like kite-string.

He can’t stop it. Even from the far side of the pool, even knowing it might come, he doesn’t have enough time to work a counterspell before Syaoran slumps into Kurogane’s side. He knows he should fight the recollection, but it grasps him in a strangle-hold.

Ashura’s spell forces him to relive every moment anew—the terror of his sentencing, the agony of the long years spent wasting away, wishing he could save his twin. Frostbite and starvation and the feeling of his hands scraped raw—the blood of Valeria at his feet—the _real_ Fai’s fall… He can’t—

Fai gasps as the spell grants him a moment’s reprieve, gagging on air. Ashura looms nearby, far closer than before the spell took hold. The sovereign must have skirted the width of the pool as the memories played on. Fai could reach out and touch the royal robe if he lunged. He stares up into dual-ringed eyes and hates the very fact of his own existence more than he could ever express. 

Ashura talks, taunting, but Fai can scarcely hear the words. He can’t lose sight of what he came here to do. He owes too many debts. He refuses to allow any of the others to suffer for them.

“Even so, that does not lessen your guilt,” Ashura finishes with a smile, and Fai finally manages just enough autonomy to act. He knows the role he would have played. If he followed the script, he would turn and realize the others have seen the whole tragedy. From there, he would have fallen apart. Ashura would try to use them against him. It might have worked once.

“No,” he fights to say, struggling past the dry-heave that threatens to wrack his form. “It doesn’t.”

The look on Ashura’s face when he summons Sakura’s body from the bottom of the pool is almost worth the pain he knows will follow. He clutches her to his chest, dodging a flurry of ice spears as he dashes back to the group.

Syaoran barely clings to consciousness, holding tight to Mokona, so Fai passes the princess to Kurogane instead. He turns, throws up a broad shield just in time to weather a storm of frozen shards. No time. He needs to draw Ashura’s focus away and—

“Hey!” Kurogane catches Fai’s shoulder with his sword hand, the other cradling Sakura’s barely breathing body. “Get them out of here. I’ll cover you.” He holds Fai’s shocked gaze, nothing but earnest and Fai can’t— The swordsman can’t mean to lock himself here along with Ashura, right? This isn’t his price to pay.

Fai’s shield trembles. Kurogane eyes it warily and lets go. “Can you spell them out?” He pulls Syaoran up, settles the kids together, draws the blade from his hand.

If this weren’t a battlefield. If Fai hadn’t clung so stubbornly to his idiotic dream. If he could somehow go back to Tokyo and tell Kurogane… he doesn’t know what. He wants a hundred thousand things, all of them impossible.

“Yes,” he says, and forces himself to believe it. He can deceive the man he’s gone and fallen in love with one last time. “Stay close when the shield falls. I won’t be able to protect them and cast at the same time.”

“I can do that.”

He’ll have to do this carefully—weave the dimension spell and only cast it toward Kurogane at the last second. As long as the man stays close, he can do it. Even if he has to pour every last bit of himself into the working.

“Go!” Kurogane barks, and the shield shatters. Souhi’s elegant form fends off a flurry of blows that should have bisected Fai, the force of each cut sweeping forward and driving Ashura back as surely as any destructive spell. Fai grits his teeth and banishes the memory of Kurogane falling bloody to the floor. He has to focus.

Fai loses himself to the magic, to the intricacy of it and the toll it takes as the chaos of battle unfolds around him. Eventually, Syaoran wakes up just enough to start throwing lightning at crucial moments. Kurogane carves through ice and takes hits when he has no other way to shield them. The mage only has the barest awareness of all of this. He struggles with his complex working, fighting to feed enough of himself into the spell to fuel it. If he’d had his other eye, he could have pulled them all through easily. But as he is now, having already sent himself to Celes once today… This will kill him. He won’t even have enough magic left for the bomb.

He thinks he can be okay with that.

By the time Fai comes back to himself, white-blue runes spinning in thick ropes around his person, Kurogane has finally begun to slow. Both arms bleed freely, sleeves torn to ribbons. A thin spike of ice or crystal renders his right leg useless below the knee, but he hasn’t fallen yet. Fai feels a pang of guilt for his state, even as the magic leaves him and saps everything he has left.

Lucky, really. The injury keeps him from noticing Fai’s spell looping over him until he can’t escape it.

“Idiot!” Kurogane roars, and the sound echoes strangely. He sounds so… upset. That can’t be right, can it? The spell demands more magic and Fai lets it bleed him dry, heedless of the red that starts to froth at his own mouth. “Fai, don’t—!”

‘Don’t,’ what? He doesn’t know. He has no way to find out because the spell takes. Four bodies shimmer in the heart of Luval castle and disappear behind a wall of blue-white magic. Fai lets himself fall, coughing. More blood spatters the crystalline tile, a familiar design. At least it’s not Kurogane’s. Not this time. Not—

“How pitiful.” Ashura muses, shoes clacking against the hard floor. The sovereign pauses by Fai’s head, bending down to lift his shaking body by the throat. “And so, you rush headlong to your own end and trade your life to save the enemy.”

Everything hurts. Fai’s every breath rattles through his chest, and he can’t feel his limbs at all. He doesn’t know how to answer. He doesn’t care.

“Don’t forget: you were always meant to grant _my_ wish. You w̢̼̹͉͓̠̻̻on̜͈̜͔'̠͖̖t̷̺͉͖̙͙͓ d̦̣̰̙̲̤̫ię̲̳̥̣̗̗̤͎ ͓̯̜͔̹̩͚̪͝h̨̨̗͓̘e̷̵̢̻̪̜̗̙͞r̶̛̟͙͇͇͈͓̹̥͘͢e̷̘͔̼̰͕͇̼̦͈̫͍̳̳̦͚͈̥͍͜ͅ.”

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……

Ÿ̸͖̹̝̱͇ͨͫ͊ͪo̸͕̝̝̪̩̯̘̘̦͍̟̞̝ͥͥͦ̈́̊̄͂̌̌͑̄̉̋͑͆̚͘͡ͅú͓̰̹̳̘͕̥̞̘̥̠̩͕̼ͣ̍͛ͩ̐̌̓́͆̍͜ͅͅ ̧̡̡̗̬̠̝͖͖ͪͥͤ͗͊ͩͧ͋͌͋̂̑w̴̧̛͕̪̖̤͎̮͓̖̻̗͌̓ͨ̈ͦ͆̐̽ͨͤ͊͌ͩ͝o̶̢̥͓̦̭̝̖̙̤͋͊̀n͎͉̲̩̼̩͚̓̐̿͒́̏ͪ̅̿̂̀͒͑͊̋͢͡͝͝ͅ'̼̻͔̯̹͎̥̫̻̘̯ͧͦ́̇̿̇̂̄̎̇ͫͅt͎͔̺͈̫͙͔̉̐ͨ̋͞ͅ ̷̡̡̭͙̭̪̤̱̣̮̼̩̏̀͆̾̅͛͑ͩ͑ͫ̒̊͂͌͜ͅͅd͕̯̮̣̩̰͓̎ͦͮ͑̕͜͞i̶ͨ͛̆ͪͬ͋̔̈̿͊̋̃̅ͨ͐͆̂̚͏̦̫͖͙̦̻͠ͅe̷̢͓̤̫̝͔̠͉̰̬͙͙̺̲͍̖̺̘̰͉ͦ̍ͦ̿ͫ͠͞ h̨̨̗͓̘e̷̵̢̻̪̜̗̙͞r̶̛̟͙͇͇͈͓̹̥͘͢e̷̘͔̼̰͕͇̼̦͈̫͍̳̳̦͚͈̥͍͜ͅ.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can he face the fight ahead alone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol. Ya'll are so quiet. I appreciate the kudos though. 
> 
> Here's where I feel like this mess starts to really pick up. I have 4 written but 5/6/7 are still in planning phase. Gonna try to delay 4 out a week to try to make room for myself to get those written first. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

* * *

The view doesn’t…

The view matches his memories two times over, but no more.

Fai stares down at the empty waste of Celes as he lingers on the ledge before Luval castle and tries to steel his fraying nerves. He chokes on air, falling to his knees in the snow as half-remembered agony wracks his form. Ashura’s last words ring in his ears and he begins to panic.

He’s never heard of a vision within a vision and true dreams have never visited him before. What if… what if he’s going through these events— _living_ through them and falling back to the start. What if he’s trapped. What if he can’t—

Fai’s breath speeds, heart hammering in his chest. He faces blank, white nothing and wonders what would happen if he jumped. He could test it. He _could_ … But he doesn’t know for certain what triggers the reset. What if Ashura has to cast it? Is such a thing possible?

He tears his gaze away from the whispering void and searches for the forms of his companions. There they stand, by the door, waiting for him to pull himself together. They’re still… they’re still here. He _knows_ he cast the spell. His very veins itch with the memory of the deepest magical exhaustion he’s ever inflicted on himself. He sent them to the nearest domain. Even if Ashura had triggered some kind of magic to cast Fai out and replay the whole farce, they hadn’t been in the castle at the time. They shouldn’t _be here_ …

Forcing himself to think, Fai fights the urge to throw up. He has no time to be ill, but his breaths come too fast, all hindering each other. He… the spell must have taken hold much earlier somehow. Ashura’s done something to bind them all, seal them all at this spot in time until… until what? Until Fai fulfils his promise? Hasn’t he already done that once? Until—

 _He doesn’t understand_.

“Ashura!” He curses, screaming to the wind, but the howl of the barren tundra devours his anguish. He has no way to comprehend this, no plan, and the void offers no suggestions (save one).

He has to fix this. Maybe… maybe if he faces Ashura alone, the others won’t be caught in any kind of backlash? He just doesn’t know how to get Sakura out. …Maybe he doesn’t have to. Syaoran has a good sense for magic. He could probably find her eventually. Fai just has to make sure the path is safe.

Snow flies in an arc behind him as he begins to stumble back toward the door, the melt beneath his kneeling form already freezing to his shins and making the work of walking even harder. He throws himself forward anyway, letting the sting of the blizzard numb his mind against the panic that threatens him. He has to let them in to the Great Hall, at the very least. In this weather, they’ll freeze at the gates if he tries to lock them out. But after that…

By the time he reaches the stair before the door, his every breath no longer threatens a sob, and the tremor of his body could easily be written off as a result of the cold. Kurogane still throws himself against the spell that keeps the door shut, this time with his shoulder braced against the stone. Fool man—he’ll just dislocate his arm trying that. (No shard of ice threads the joint of his knee, and no river of blood falls from his side. Fai has the reset to thank for that, at the very least. He wishes he couldn’t still see the injuries when he blinks.)

Syaoran and Mokona look at the mangled dead and Kurogane’s efforts in turn, both obviously unnerved. He wishes he could do more for them, but he can’t—he has to face Ashura. He has to get them out of this trap somehow. He storms closer, keeps his spine straight and his head high.

“Oh,” Mokona murmurs as he passes, and clings closer to Syaoran, face half-buried in his neck. Fai wants to ask, but he thinks he already knows the answer; empathy is one of Mokona’s Secret Techniques and Fai is a wreck.

Kurogane tries his strength against the solid doors once again, sound of his shoulder slamming into the stone audible even over the high shriek of wind. Not so long ago Fai might have teased him for his bull-headed determination, but he can’t find the energy now. The one person he ever truly considered a parent has trapped the only people he has left to care about in some kind of curse and he has to—he has to _fix this_. 

Fai doesn’t utter a word, just reaches out and undoes the enchantment barring the doors shut. Kurogane predictably stumbles into the Great Hall when the gate buckles inward. The swordsman takes a few steps to catch his balance, then whirls to pin Fai with a look he can’t place.

(“Idiot!” He’d shouted, sounding so upset as Fai’s magic sent him away. Heart beating slower for every second, Fai doesn’t have enough left of himself to understand why. Kurogane keeps trying to save him, and he just can’t figure out—)

In that first run, Kurogane wouldn’t turn on him, not even with the worst of truths laid bare, and Fai still hasn’t come to terms with that yet. This fool would face Ashura at his side without blinking, drag Fai kicking and screaming toward sense, cut away all the mirrors and illusions and die for his trouble. Fai can’t… he can’t let that happen again. He’s not worthy of any of it.

Fai’s resolve firms. Kurogane must catch something in his expression, ruby-eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“What are you—”

“This way,” he calls, ducking past Kurogane’s reach and into the Great Hall. The oppressive feel of Ashura’s magic slides through his senses like roiling mud. He waits to hear Syaoran cross the threshold behind him before he waves the door shut again.

Once more, he hears the sharp gasp that Syaoran steals as he breaches the doorway. This time, he can’t mistake the correlation between Syaoran’s sudden pain and the field of Ashura’s power. Had the damned mind magic taken hold even now? 

“Does Syaoran have a headache?” Mokona’s usually sunny voice echoes strangely through the vaulted room.

“No…” The boy insists, and his footsteps resume.

Fai’s hands clench. There are spells to ward the mind from evil influences, ways to clear illusions. If he didn’t need to worry about every drop of magic spent…

No. If all goes to plan, Syaoran shouldn’t have to weather these effects for long. He just has to find a way to leave them behind.

The Great Hall of Castle Luval yawns before them, a grey chasm of shadow and the mangled dead that can only hint at its former beauty in the intricate carvings of crystal spires. Fai tries not to breath the scent of human rot too deeply and walks onward. (He does not look at their faces, fingers aching beneath his gloves)

“Step carefully,” he says, leading them this time toward the upward stair, far to the right of the room, tucked beneath the mezzanine. Bodies and narrowly spaced pillars obscure the path. The Beast must have thrown any discarded kills in this direction, clearing the way to the Great Stair. Blood puddles at their feet, tacky and long-dried, the smell almost unbearable near higher piles… a terrible scene, to be sure, but it suits Fai’s purposes now.

“Oi, Mage…” Kurogane starts, but Fai only widens the distance between them. He doesn’t glance at the others to gauge their progress. He doesn’t need to. He can hear the hesitation in their steps. By the time he slips into the shadow beneath the Mezzanine they have no hope of catching up in time. Fai ducks behind the curtain, feeding the heavy door to the living quarters just enough magic to shut behind himself.

“Hey!” The swordsman barks, picking over bodies at a run now, but he can’t possibly make it in time. Fai makes the mistake of catching his eye in the narrowing gap between the door and its frame. Anger burns in his expression, as it should, but… something else. Fai doesn’t know how to unpack the worry he finds. Why. Why even now— “Don’t—” Kurogane’s words end prematurely once again, washed away in the dull thud of stone.

Fai stands alone and forces himself to breathe in the pitch dark of the unlit stairwell. He needs to keep moving. He needs to get to Ashura—fix the trap before it can spring again. He just—It isn’t fair, how easily Kurogane can rattle him. Why does the man always leave him so—

The door thuds, dully. Almost as if someone had tried to throw themself against it.

Fai turns and feels his way up the stair in the dark, heart racing in his chest. That man is too stubborn for his own damned good, and Fai refuses to let him come to harm again. He’ll fix this. He _has_ to.

* * *

The fluorite stone in his study on the library floor, six flights below the Great Hall is linked with two other places. First, to the heart of the castle two floors below that. Second, to Fai’s room, three stories _above_ the Great Hall in the eastern tower.

The trek to his room, though ostensibly in the opposite direction of the pool at the castle’s core, actually makes for a faster trip relative to the Library gate or simply running the stairwells on foot. Even if the others knew where they were going, they wouldn’t be able to beat him to Ashura. Fai has to count on that.

He would only normally have avoided the route because it requires another spell… But transporting himself without the others should take less effort. Besides, the possibility of sparing the others from any meeting with Ashura outweighs the risk.

Fai finds his way to his old room without bothering to waste his energy on the lights, driven by a frantic need to escape—to avenge the friends who haven’t yet fallen—to end the farce Ashura seems intent on stringing him through. He doesn’t know what the Sovereign intends to do by forcing these… resets, or whether indeed Ashura has anything to do with them, but he knows he has to put an end to all of it without the others getting hurt.

He tries not to linger long over the remnants of his past life when he comes at last to his old room, steps stuttering into the grey light of the blizzard through his window. Too many memories lurk here, too many hopes hidden in the gifts and wards and the tiny ways he’d started to call this place home after spending so long feeling afraid. He tries not to think about the one who’d given everything to him, who’d just as capriciously taken it all away.

Wild emotion makes the fluorite anchor spark as he activates it, magic bleed overflowing. The portal cascades open over the blank space of the wall near his old bed. He grits his teeth and steels his spine one more time. Exhales. Steps through.

“Welcome home, Fai,” Ashura’s voice severs his thoughts like a knife, standing at the far side of the pool nearer the towering door. The illusion of a cursed child hides once again beneath the royal robe, and rage shakes Fai’s body like a leaf.

“If it were at all possible, I would never have come back, Your Majesty.” He bites, and the words have more meaning now. He’d died last time and meant it. The others had been _safe_ , and Ashura hadn’t been able to follow, and then this new curse had gone and taken that victory away.

The Sovereign laughs, low chuckle cutting through the hushed air of the cavernous room. “ _There_ you are. That’s the sort of face you should wear when you slay a beast.” Ashura holds the illusion’s hand, leading him around the edge of the pool. To any onlooker, the motion looks innocent, but Fai watches and sees the Beast stalking in every step. “We’ve been waiting so long for you to come to your senses and return to fulfil your promises, this child and I.”

“Stop,” he rasps, eye flickering for just a second to the false image of a living Fai. Every horrible word Ashura speaks with that same, placid smile twists the knife deeper. All of these years… when had the curse first taken hold? Had all of Ashura’s kindnesses… had every single one of them been nothing but an act? He can’t… He can’t face that now. He can only… One thing at a time. “We both know what you really want, Your Majesty. I made you a promise. No need for the illusions.”

“No? Pity.” Ashura’s hand slips away from the false child. Fai tenses, expecting to feel the insidious hooks of the memory spell at any second. He does not expect the way Ashura _flies_ across the pool, appearing before his face before Fai can even flinch. “Illusions are so much easier to live with, don’t you think, Yuui?”

His stomach lurches as the words land and Fai barely manages to duck the dagger of ice Ashura guides towards his remaining eye. A panicked whistle sees sudden wind sweep him away from the Sovereign’s next, wide slash. Fai regroups, wide-eyed and crouched low with his back against the far wall. He can’t let Ashura’s words get to him. He can’t—How does it still hurt? To hear his guilt proclaimed with that voice?

“Where are your companions, Fai? Did you abandon them too? Or have they already discovered your truth?” The Sovereign looms closer, slowly, palms shimmering with magic as crystals form and sharpen around in the surrounding air. Apparently without the others here, Ashura finds no reason to re-run Fai’s worst memories like cheap entertainment. In theory, that should make things easier, but he doesn’t remember Ashura having that kind of speed before. Had the mind spell weighed his adversary down?

Shards cascade toward him without warning, and Fai barely has the time to cast a shield. He feels one slice through his upper arm, but it doesn’t stop him from returning a barrage of his own. Ashura’s precise shielding stops every one of Fai’s missiles just before they connect. Those menacing, even footsteps echo through the room, unceasing.

Another volley, another flawless barrier. Before he’d lost this place to the workings of that damn curse, he remembers matching Ashura blow for blow. He held the Sovereign in sleep easily, but he’d had both his eyes then. With his power running low and Ashura’s glutted on murder he can only just keep up, not to mention the sheer difficulty of adjusting to the new blind spot. To do this without the others, he’s going to need to fight better than he ever has before.

Fai takes a deep breath, reminds himself why he has to do this. If he can bring Ashura low and clear the way before the others reach the chamber, maybe—

A low roar thrums through the echoing space of the castle’s heart, deep and distant like thunder. He hears it roll on, crescendo, feels the floor shake in the aftermath. He needs to hurry.

He can’t land a hit from afar. Ashura’s shields are too precise and he doesn’t have the level of power he needs for long enough to simply overpower them. Fighting close might prove a risk, but he never planned to live afterward. If he can win, then….

Fai takes advantage of the earthquake’s distraction to rush back into Ashura’s space, calling the wind to speed him. He catches his adversary off balance, burns a hole in the royal robe, and kills the feelings that threaten him at the sight of the look of _pride_ on Ashura’s face.

Immediately, the Sovereign switches tactics. Sharp spears encircle them both in a corona of death, ready to launch at a moment’s notice. The ice floating above Ashura’s palm melts and reforms around thin fingers—claws for the Beast. “Grant my wish,” the creature in Ashura’s skin purrs. Fai grits his teeth and digs deep for battle-numbness.

“Only if you grant mine in return.” He takes a cue from Ashura’s conjuration and forms his own staff of crystalline magic. It won’t take much punishment, but maybe just enough.

Seconds tick by. Neither of them move, both waiting for the right opening. The spears in the ring above launch without warning. Fai throws his shields as quickly as he can, letting the barrier deal with his blind side as he launches himself toward the Beast.

The chamber rings with the sounds of cracking ice, displaced wind and the crack of staff against claw as they fall into grueling battle. Fai channels a blast through the staff that Ashura doesn’t anticipate in time to block, tearing a bloody rent in the Sovereign’s shoulder. Ashura blocks a glancing blow and slides down the length of the staff before Fai can react, gouging deep into Fai’s chest. He fights past the injury, uncaring. For every dagger Ashura replaces, a little more bleeds away from the behemoth of the Beast’s power, and Fai knows he’ll soon have the opening he needs to make this end.

He can’t use the bomb. Even if he could land it, he needs answers he can’t force if they both die too quickly. He settles for this instead—the slow, bloody grind as he barely reaches past Ashura’s shields to whittle the Sovereign’s life away. Fai takes as much as he gives, no matter his handicaps. Kurogane bound him to life with a vampire’s blood and without magic his reflexes far surpass Ashura’s own.

Finally, finally, the hail of daggers begins to slow, and Fai finds just the window he needs. He surges forward, palm bright with a blast of destruction that will carve into Ashura’s heart and—

“ _You murdered—”_ The image of his twin stands in the way of his final strike. Fai can’t help himself—he hesitates, spell fizzling in his horror. Even _knowing_ it’s an illusion, he can’t—

White hot agony lights his being, body unable to comprehend what has just happened to it. The shield—he hadn’t…. Fai lists to the side, barely able to raise one arm high enough to touch the wide spear protruding through his body. Immediately, he tastes the familiar iron of blood, the bitter froth he knows to signal the end. 

“Too easy,” Ashura laments, caressing the ragged wound of Fai’s abdomen with a deceptively delicate touch. The mage begins to fall, legs no longer capable of holding him. Ashura’s clawed hand shoots out to take his throat and strangles Fai with the force of his own gravity. “You would forfeit your life to protect little more than a falsehood… even if you had both your eyes, you could not have beaten me like that.” Blood catches in his closing throat, vision weaving in and out. Fai does not have enough left in him to scrabble at the Beast’s hold. He has to follow where it leads, limp as a doll. “But even so…. You will not die.”

The words warp in his mind as consciousness bleeds away. He—he needs to ask. He has to know—

He can’t manage a single word between the force of Ashura’s grip and the state of his body. “Pitiful,” Ashura murmurs, tossing him aside and tugging the spear free in a singular motion. Fai’s mind can’t comprehend the pain of that sensation. He can’t even scream as the wound is bared, blood and viscera tugged free in the construct’s wake.

Far across the room, the door booms, once, twice.

“I wonder, if those others had arrived sooner, could you have finished it? You have never been angry enough on your own behalf… Maybe one of them will have the strength to end it…”

No, he has to—he was supposed to finish it before they got involved. He was supposed to—

Souhi flows with the power and fury of a dragon. Fai’s dying mind can’t comprehend the world any longer, but he understands it in retrospect; the sight of Kurogane cutting through the solid stone of the door with a shout of rage.

“Don’t disappoint me next time,” Ashura sighs, and wanders forth to meet the battle, Fai’s stolen magic settling anew beneath the Beast’s murderous skin.

(He _can’t die yet, he has to—)_

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N̶̩̖͕͟e͙̻̦̫̠͝x̪̯̖̙͝͞ţ̴̛̬̱̞̬̟̤͈͓̜͘ ṫ̴̴̳̝͕̟͎͎̩͎̞̞̩̯̤̹̫̬̯͊̄̈́ͨ̐̿̔ị̢̨̦̤̫͈̣̭͙̰̠͍̜̟̦͙͖̜̦̂͐ͭ̎̅̃̃́̂ͫͫ̍̋̄͗̚͠m̷̵̠̘͉̦̭̱͇̬̼̪͕̖̗̜͂̍͗ͫ̒̽̅ͣͬ̔͆̊̍́̏͘͞͞ ẻͦͫ̃̾̎̉.̴͚̘̟̲̮͑͊͘̕.̮̹̘̱̱̦ͨͨͥ̀͗̕͝.̨̤̭̺̖̝͕͙̣̺͖̳͑ͦ̀̽̓̍ͩ͘͝


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It can always get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH. uh. this chapter is pretty long, apparently. next couple should be shorter so... sorry about that!
> 
> This one is the one I'm least happy with style-wise--there's a portion mid chapter that I think gets kind of flat. Happy with the ending though! 
> 
> Thanks for the lovely reviews! You guys are helping me stay inspired haha. my brain feels like mush but I'm committed to getting through this one too now that Let Go is done.
> 
> ALSO: I am doing my damndest to respect both Ashura and Mokona's respective lack of pronouns. If you spot gendered pronouns in regard to either character, I have made a mistake. I find a couple now and then but I will not be at all offended if you point out one I missed

* * *

The view becomes increasingly synchronous with his memory of this damn ledge.

Fai screams himself into consciousness at the edge before Luval castle, gaze fixed on the empty, white waste of Celes. The howl of the barren tundra devours his voice before it can call to his companions, back again by the door and the bodies that decorate it.

Nothing exists in the white _nothing_ of this hell save the travelers and the Beast and the void. He stares down the promise of quiet that whispers to him from the long plunge just a few feet away and wishes with all his being he could have faith such an end might somehow fix everything.

He wouldn’t test it, of course… If he can die for good here, then he leaves the others behind to face Ashura alone. If he can’t die here then… well, what’s the point of trying? He can’t leave them yet. Not until he sees this terrible thing through, one way or the other.

Fai takes a few stumbling steps backward from the temptation of the jump and falls down to slump in the piling snow. Cold sinks past the protection of his coat, seeping into his clothes and amplifying the way his body still shakes. Not a trace of the wound that killed him last remains and yet he can still feel its memory smarting with every breath.

Alright. Alright. So what had he learned? He’d learned Ashura seemed to know something about the resets, but not how. He deosn’t know for sure whether the Beast even causes them, or why. He knows the reset curse links to his death, but not whether that death has to happen in a specific location or by Ashura’s hand. If the sovereign dies first, would that free him? He doesn’t have answers for any of it. For all intents and purposes, Fai’s last run granted him his most painful end yet and almost nothing gained!

…except that now he knows he can trick the others into staying behind. And maybe that Ashura won’t try to use the memory spell when Fai comes alone. Depending on how much the sovereign remembers between attempts, he might have gotten a better feel for Ashura’s fighting style…

It’s… fine. This is fine. He can do this. Just abandon the others in the Great Hall again, be _better_ this time, get his answers, break the anchors that keep him clinging to life and get Sakura out before he dies. If he should fall in the attempt, it’ll probably just yank him back to this damn ledge _again_. He’ll grind his way through resets until he finds the solution. The pain and the memories don’t matter. His feelings don’t matter. He can do this. 

If he doesn’t breathe too deeply, he can even pretend he believes it. 

* * *

The times he’s turned and walked back to the castle door have begun to blur. Already, the motions feel like a routine. He trudges back, kicking up snow and pretending he doesn’t want to throw up. His timing seems to affect whether Kurogane tries to injure himself on the door. Someone makes a comment about Fai’s expression or the bodies at the gate, and Fai spells the door open.

Try to avoid Kurogane’s eyes, fight against the sick feel of Ashura’s magic, and listen to the sounds of Syaoran struggling with the same as he lets the door swing shut. Like clockwork, all the events fall exactly as they should, and he allows himself to lean into the feeling of banal familiarity.

So of course, that’s when he messes up somewhere. (He just… can’t tell where.)

“This way,” he calls as the thunder of the door closing fades to silence. The footsteps of his companions sound behind him and Fai does not look back. The Great Hall presents its terrible spectacle—strange shadows and twisted bodies and a smell that he can never seem to escape. Maybe he got the timing wrong. Maybe he paused just a few seconds too many before he turned toward the upward stair?

“Step carefully,” Fai murmurs as he begins to pick over the gory terrain. The shadows help disguise the faces of the dead piled at his feet and he has no desire to look past them. He tries to keep his gaze focused on the curtain before the archway, tucked beneath the mezzanine shelf. Does he tarry too long between uncertain steps?

“Hey,” Kurogane barks, and before Fai can widen the distance between them, he feels the heat of the swordsman’s palm through his sleeve. He doesn’t know how he messed up, but he needs to escape. The fight ahead looms in his mind. He doesn’t want to face that again, but he has to—he has to keep weathering the same tortures to find the end of this.

Fai’s breath speeds, panic slipping through his careful control like an unwelcome intruder. He yanks at his arm, but Kurogane only holds tighter.

“We need to keep moving, _Kurogane_.” Fai warns, reaching again for the shield of cruelty. He expects the name to hurt. For all the swordsman has always harped about the issue, he understands what Fai means to say each time the nicknames are discarded; _I don’t care about you—I won’t even play at it any longer_. He’s never given voice to the lie but Kurogane hears it anyway. Fai twists his wrist a second time, expecting to pull free and start running… but the iron grip at his arm remains.

“So start walking.”

This time, he can’t keep himself from turning to look. Kurogane meets his questing eye with an expression he still can’t figure out—suspicious? Worried? He doesn’t—

He tests the threat, taking a step forward. Kurogane matches him, fingers locked at Fai’s wrist in a parody of hand-holding.

Syaoran and Mokona linger in the background, distracted by the grim scenery. Still, the kid’s steps plod closer and before long, any chance Fai has of leaving the group behind goes up in smoke.

“I could almost think you don’t trust me,” cruelty doesn’t work, so he feigns at humor instead. His false smile fades slowly as Kurogane only stares, hand like a vice. “Fair enough.”

He steps on nerveless legs toward the shadow of the mezzanine with his thoughts racing and Kurogane in tow, careful not to slip in the gory mess of human remains left for far too long. (Another shame on his conscience. Had he even thought to bury them?) Syaoran follows, matching his careful pace until they reach the door together.

He can salvage this, probably. Even if he brings them to his room, he can just… send himself through the fluorite gate and close the doorway before they touch it. If only Kurogane will just _let go_ of his wrist.

Fai leads them through the curtain and the narrow stone archway. He can’t do anything to shake Kurogane loose without hurting him (which… Fai has not yet found himself desperate enough to try.)

“You can look now, Mokona.” Syaoran whispers as they crowd the landing at the base of the stair. “I don’t think there are any people left here.” The white creature hums and shuffles, rearranging on Syaoran’s shoulder until the world comes back into view.

“If there were any, Mokona wouldn’t be able to tell! It’s so dark.”

True. The eastern tower stair has very little by way of light. With no windows save for the very top floor, only weak dregs of illumination filter down the narrow stone staircase to its entrance. Alone, Fai can easily traverse this stair in the dark—he knows it too well. But the others… If someone dies because they fell down the damn stairs, he will never forgive himself. He’ll need to activate the enchantments in the walls.

“Let go,” he means to command, but the words sound more like desperate begging. Fai tries to tug again at his wrist. He can’t see Kurogane’s expression in the dark, but he feels the indecision in that touch. “I need to bring the lights up.”

“I can do it.” He nearly startles at Syaoran’s unexpected offer. Easy to forget that Syaoran had worried over his dwindling magic since they’d arrived here. (Even if he still can’t understand _why_ the kid cares.)

Without any instruction, Syaoran only needs a few extra moments to learn the feel of the spells woven in these walls and bring the lights to life himself. Just like that, they all stand in the well-lit stair, Kurogane’s hand still unyielding on Fai’s wrist.

“Go on then,” the man grouches, nodding toward the staircase and the only path forward. Fai rolls his remaining eye and begins the trek with his retinue in tow.

Traitorous relief claws at his heart as they rise past the first floor, then the second, and Kurogane still refuses to budge. He knows the reasons why he must, but he does not want to face Ashura again alone. Would it really be so terrible to take them along? Even if they should fall, he only needs to die again to bring them back safe. They won’t even remember. Can’t he just allow himself to take comfort in the presence of others? Can he be at least that selfish?

“Fai…” He hears Mokona sigh and redoubles his efforts to keep his idiot emotions in check. That skill for empathy makes him too vulnerable. Between Mokona and Kurogane, whose unwavering glare burns the back of his neck, he has no room for error.

“Where are you leading us?” the ninja finally asks as they crest the landing on the third floor, and Fai marches them down the empty hall to his open door.

“To Sakura.” He can’t think of a better lie. He wonders whether he _could_ ditch them at this point—whether Syaoran would only learn the method of working the doorways just as quickly as he’d learned the lights.

He doesn’t need to look to feel Kurogane’s displeasure. The man’s grasp proves a distraction for more reasons than one. His damned vampiric nature can sense the beat of Kurogane’s pulse in the press of callused fingertips, quick and steady even through the fabric of Fai’s gloves.

At least it prevents him from thinking too hard about the scattered remains of his old life as he steps back into his old room. The travelers cast strange shadows in the stark grey light of the blizzard through his window. They fit too well among the debris of his happiness here, all the precious things he ever tried to discard gathered in one place.

“Oh, this was Fai’s—” Mokona’s voice warbles into the gloom, too sad and serious for that tiny frame. Syaoran keeps one hand over white fur, granting what comfort he can. He stares at the discarded wards and unfinished spells with clear wonder even as his expression wrinkles with the pain of a headache.

( _He thinks unbidden of the first go-round—the impossible way they reacted to his worst memories, the sight of Kurogane’s blood flooding the ground beneath his felled form, Syaoran exhausted and pleading with him not to walk away—)_

No. No, Fai can’t lead them into the same trap again. He _won’t_. Fai yanks at his own arm with a vampire’s strength, but only succeeds in pulling Kurogane forward. The warmth of that broad palm grips hard enough to bruise.

“ _Let go_.” He could cry if he let himself. He doesn’t have the time. “I need to open gate if we want to reach the Princess in time. _Why_ are you making this so difficult—?”

“I’m not taking any chances when you have that look on your face,” Kurogane’s even tone threatens to break him. The kids stare silently from the sidelines, trying to pretend not to take interest in Fai’s old things or the argument brewing in front of them. “You’re fooling yourself if you think I can’t tell when you’re planning something idiotic.”

He _hates_ how easily that man can read him even as his heart sings at the thought. They spent too long trapped in a wordless world with nothing but each other to trust in and not even Fai’s worst attempts at cruelty can erase that. Something in him thrills at the idea of the way Kurogane knows him. That part of him is a weakness he can’t afford not to kill.

“I need to activate the gateway.” Kurogane refuses to look away, and Fai balks first, unable to bear the searching heat of that gaze.

“I… I could try if that would help?” Syaoran offers once again. He searches the room without waiting for an invitation, looking for the series of runes or the feel of an item that might conceivably act as a gate. 

“That’s kind of you, but it really should be—it won’t take any time at all if—” Syaoran is far too smart for his own good. He spots the fluorite stone settled in its place beside the bed and seals Fai’s fate before the mage can finish his protest.

Fai sags with defeat as Syaoran begins to investigate the doorway, already learning what he can, goaded on by Mokona’s attempts at cheer.

He can’t watch this play out again. He refuses. There has to be something he can do—anything at all. (Maybe if he throws himself out the window and begs for a restart—) Maybe if he can trust in another chance, then…

Signaled by something Fai can’t understand, Kurogane finally releases his iron hold. His touch lingers just long enough to try to soothe the marks left behind, and with no further protest, he lets Fai’s wrist fall.

“Why…?” (Why now? Why wait for this instant to finally concede? Why care at all in the first place?)

“Stop trying to get yourself killed, Mage.”

Kurogane wears his heart on his sleeve in comparison to Fai and yet… he just can’t read the thoughts behind that gaze. He doesn’t know how he messed up, or what Kurogane caught on to. He doesn’t understand why the man still _cares_ at this point—why Fai just can’t shake the unwavering devotion he never did anything to deserve.

“Is Syaoran really okay?” Mokona’s worry shakes him from his thoughts, and Fai tears himself away from his own meaningless emotions to spot the kid working his way through the magic of the doorway even as he grits his teeth against the pain of his headache.

He knows what happens next. If his suspicions about Syaoran’s discomfort hold true, then Ashura has already made his first move and the memory spell is already in effect. He doesn’t know how to counter it, but if he could block it off….

If the spell plays out, he knows what happens next, but Syaoran and Kurogane have held their own in enough fights before this one for Fai to respect their respective prowess. If he gave them more of a fighting chance, would anything change?

He makes his decision and tries not to let Kurogane’s suspicious stare affect him as he pulls himself together and strides to his old bedside.

“Hold still.” He barely remembers the charm he needs. Ashura tried teaching him mind magics an eternity ago, but it felt too much like healing. He’d managed to pick up something of mind shielding, but none of the finer points. Mental magic is delicate and needs detailed attention, but he can paint shields in broader swaths without care to specificity. If he spends too much power in the formation, he can’t accidentally damage anything.

Syaoran‘s shoulders nearly rise to his ears with tension as Fai reaches out, hands looped in tiny runes. He touches the kid’s temple and feels the spell slide into place. He still can’t find the bounds of Ashura’s working, but he doesn’t need to find the edges to cut the center. The shield settles. Something unseen breaks beneath its blunt force, and Syaoran wobbles faintly with clear relief, all his breath rushing free in a single exhale.

“ _Oh_ ,” he murmurs, and Fai nods, turning next to Kurogane.

Already, he can feel the drain. Maintaining the shield will cost him in power. Ashura’s magic is glutted with blood and does not take kindly to his measures to shut it out. He doesn’t care. He can do this. He has enough to protect them at least this much.

“Come here,” he commands, forcing his hands to weave a second spell as he does his level best not to look at Kurogane directly.

Fool that he is, Kurogane does not ask what spell Fai means to cast, nor does he tense with confusion like Syaoran. He simply steps forward with that same unreadable look. And when Fai reaches up to anchor the spell he bows his head without question.

Fai’s heart clenches in his chest. He scarcely dares to breathe as his fingers touch the delicate skin at Kurogane’s temples. His magic washes over Kurogane like a second skin—closer than Fai can afford to allow himself, but he wants things he can’t have. He feels the buzz of Kurogane’s ordered mind behind the press of his spell and listens to the constant rhythm of the blood in his veins. If he wanted, he could destroy this man in so many ways, and still….

The spell settles, and Ashura’s hold snaps a second time. Fai makes the mistake of looking straight into bright red eyes as his strength wavers.

“Mage?”

“I…” He doesn’t know what he means to say. Too many things at once, nothing at all. _I’m fine,_ maybe, or stupidly, _I don’t want to face this alone._

“Mokona knew Syaoran could do it!” The announcement sounds nearby and startles him out of his daze. Fai shakes his head and ducks away from Kurogane’s steadying hand. He turns and spots Syaoran at the bedside, beaming at them all beneath a haze of blue. The gateway opens to his touch with a spark of magic like a pleased cat. He has it held open and stable without so much as a word of instruction.

Well. No turning back now.

“Thanks, Fai,” he murmurs, “that shield really helped. I didn’t realize—”

“Don’t thank me.” Fai breathes deep and steels his spine. He knows he won’t have as much to give in the fight to come, but he doesn’t care whether he makes it through this. If he can find the anchors that keep him restarting—if his shield keeps them all alive for at least that long, he will have no complaints. He stands straight and glides through the door, trying to ignore the feel of Kurogane’s eyes on his back.

* * *

Immediately, he spots the Sovereign across the pool as they file through the open door, so wracked with nerves he wants to vomit.

“Welcome home—” Ashura starts the same damn introduction, only to pause as the dual roar of a distant earthquake echoes through the room. It rolls through the portal first with a deafening clamor, and the doorway snaps shut at Kurogane’s heels. As the blue light fades above diming crystal, the remnants of the blast still manage to make the ground tremble.

That… Does that mean something happened in the living quarters? Every time he’s heard that sound before, has something fallen in his old room?

Ashura eyes the severed gateway with a raised brow, one hand idly playing with the long blond hair of a cursed child’s illusion. “Making a mess already, Fai? And here we have waited so patiently for you to return, this child and I.”

The urge to bow still batters at his resolve. Fai crushes the impulse. He hates what happened to Ashura and he hates himself for existing long enough to cause it, but he has too much to do to lose focus now.

“The Sovereign casts spears and illusions easier than breathing. Those shields should keep you safe from the worst of the mind magic, but be careful.” He murmurs to the others in sotto voce, doing his level best to ignore the way Ashura’s power batters at the shields that slowly bleed him dry. Syaoran and Kurogane grant him twin nods, and they both ready for a fight. Mokona buries further into Syaoran’s cloak.

“Are you not even willing to greet us, Fai?” Ashura calls, each step loud in the empty chamber that has thrice already served as Fai’s deathbed. He bites his cheek, hands itching with the buzz of magic, and searching desperately for something, anything that might look even a little bit like an anchor. “Very well then. Perhaps we should teach you some manners.”

He cannot feel anything promising outside of Ashura’s presence or Sakura’s worryingly dim lifeforce. But he _does_ catch the glint of cruelty in Ashura’s eye as the sovereign begins to stalk the outer edge of the pool.

He has miscalculated. Fai protected the others from seeing his memories, but he had done nothing to protect himself from being forced to relive them. He thought that since he’d arrived alone and Ashura had ignored the mind spell… but apparently the others’ presence changes things. He has no time to work a third shield for himself before Ashura’s magic sinks into his mind and pulls the ragged ends of his memories free again (again).

The film reel of his trauma does not get easier to watch with repetition. Maybe it gets harder. Remembered terror and guilt eat at him, carving jagged wounds in his soul that dig deeper with every pass. Time and the very person who tortures him both helped Fai pack his worst memories behind the veil of forgetfulness, but each round of this spell shreds that covering further—makes him start to remember other hurts.

He thinks longer on the news of his mother’s suicide and the twist in his chest when he’d barely understood the word. In his memories, he thought he knew she loved them, but he must have… had he done something wrong? Had the twins’ curse simply driven her mad in a different way? He thinks of growing older, _slowly_ in the pit that would not let him starve, of the terror he’d felt for Fai, of his deepest wish to die and follow his twin. After Fai fell, he had wound down and stopped. Just. Sat there. Staring at the dead, horribly jealous of their fates and realizing he no longer had the luxury of suicide. He cannot leave, but if he could, he would owe it to Fai to keep this life until he could pass it back. He has to make up for the decision. He—

The spell gutters abruptly just as he watches himself look up at the (kind-cruel-beloved-repulsive) figure of the Sovereign in memory and Fai gasps. His whole body shakes, head pounding as the magic retreats.

“Fai!” Mokona’s sweet voice greets him before all else. Fai focuses on the sound like a tuning fork for reality. The after-effects of that damn mind spell and the tug of magical exhaustion both threaten him with unconsciousness, black spots dancing over his vision. “Fai, you have to snap out of it!” Mokona cheers again, and only then does he begin to recognize the chaos unfolding in the heart chamber of Luval.

He finds Syaoran and Kurogane on the other side of the room, both deep in battle and doing their level best to corner the Beast. The shatter-crash of ice crystals and the echoing thuds of impacts roar through the air and deafen him to nearly all else. As he watches, Syaoran diverts his attack to dodge a flurry of crystals launched by Ashura’s hand. They dig into the wall behind him, bringing down a chunk of stone. Before the dust can settle, Kurogane unleashes another of his impossible sword slashes, and the volley of projectiles scatters.

The two of them look more or less okay amidst the slowly-worsening ruin of the heart chamber. A little worse for wear, with dings and scratches torn across their skin, but no impalement wounds that he can see. Across the line of battle, Ashura stands just as battered, smile stubbornly placid. The blossoming purple of a bruise flowers over one pale temple in the shape of Kurogane’s fist. Fai wonders at the sight, suddenly understanding why the spell lost its hold.

“Fai, you have to get up.” Mokona worries, mostly buried in _his_ cloak now. The fluff of a white ear tickles at his neck as his smallest companion frets.

“Yes,” he agrees. He has to do a great many things somehow. Sakura—he wanted. He needs to get to—

Still slumped by the pool, he doesn’t have to reach far to find the hum of Sakura’s flickering life beneath. (Or to sense the empty shell of his brother, the fading trace of Chii’s existence.) His magic fights against him as he tugs at her form, spiraling runes of summoning dangling in sluggish cables down into the water. Already, the core of his magic aches with exhaustion as he grabs hold of the princess and tugs her free, but he does it anyway. _Princess, anchors, get the others out_ , his mind repeats the words on loop, taking up the space his higher thoughts leave vacant.

“Oh! It’s Sakura!” He lifts Sakura away from the embrace of water and gathers her in shaking arms, nodding to Mokona as he pulls himself to his feet.

However inelegant, his stunt draws Ashura’s attention. The Sovereign stares at him across the room with crazed, dual-ringed pupils, and somehow seems… surprised?

(In the back of his thoughts, he logs the reaction for later. Ashura has already seen him pull Sakura free of the pool in at least one repeat. Why should it seem so strange for Fai to do so again? Can he really trust that Ashura knows anything about the repeats at all? What if—)

“Eyes on me, fucker.” Kurogane hisses, in the Sovereign’s space and scoring another slash across unbowed shoulders before Ashura can finish turning back to the fight.

“Quaint,” the beast muses, repelling Kurogane with a blast that leaves the skin of his neck red and raw. Crystals form behind Ashura’s silhouette, granting the illusion of a terrible halo before they grow and speed forward, intent to drive into Kurogane’s reeling form.

 _“Raitei shourai!”_ Syaoran unleashes a bolt of lightning that clears the projectiles from the field and Kurogane grants him a warrior’s nod before they all fall back into the dance of combat.

Fai can’t—Fai’s heart catches in his throat, and he does not know which of them he worries more for. Somewhere, perversely, every slice they land on Ashura still wracks him with worry—too long spent caring for a parent who had only ever meant to use him in the end. He just can’t shake the idiotic sense of love that even now refuses to let him go.

 _Princess. Anchors. Escape,_ the mantra reminds him, and Fai stumbles toward a mound of nearby rubble.

“Mokona,” he calls, “You’ll protect Sakura, won’t you?”

“Mokona can do that.” The fluff of Mokona’s form whispers against his neck as the creature leaps to Sakura’s chest instead, balancing on the hollow of her collarbone. “What will Fai do?”

“Oh, this and that,” he sighs with false cheer. He settles Sakura’s body over the flat plain of a fallen stone and casts as strong a shield as he dares over her, just in case Ashura gets any counter-summoning ideas. The spell leaves dark spots dancing over his vision already and he starts to worry… Maybe he’ll have to rely on Mokona to get them all out in the end.

Across the room, the fight picks back up. He hears Kurogane bark something to his newest protégé, the distant chirp of lightning, the endless sound of shattered ice. He can’t afford to look. Terror marches through his bones like a physical creature.

_Anchors, Escape_

“Actually, I… I need to find a spell. Do you sense anything at all that might be tying us all here? Keeping us from leaving?”

Mokona looks up at him with wide, serious eyes. White ears perk as they scan the room, lingering on each member of their party.

“It’s strange. Mokona senses very, very many spells, but there’s too much here to see clearly. Maybe… maybe after we find Sakura’s feather…?”

“Yes,” Fai agrees, feeling like a knife has begun to twist in his chest. Because… The feather is already gone. Chii, the child he formed, has already returned and he will never see her again. He will never again have any chance of bringing the true Fai back…

He has chosen, hasn’t he? Where his loyalties lie.

“Stay here,” He orders, and steps back toward the pool. The feather that guarded his twin is gone, but Mokona still thinks it exists, so something must. Could the anchor for the spell be threaded in Luval’s heart? It would certainly make sense as a place of power. Maybe he can—

“ _Mage_!”

“Fai!”

His instincts shriek in warning, just seconds too late. Made sluggish by magical exhaustion, he doesn’t have enough time to react when Ashura appears at his side and grasps him by the throat.

“I see,” the Sovereign sighs, “So you would choose them over your own brother? What a fickle heart you carry, Fai.” Wide, dual-ringed irises flit to land on the distant forms of Syaoran and Kurogane, calculating, and Fai learns a new kind of terror. “No matter. Perhaps that makes these insects more useful than I thought. You will grant my wish in the end. One way, or another.”

“Let him go!” Syaoran’s voice carries through the chamber as the others make their way back to the far side of the pool. Fai doesn’t have enough mind left to watch. he already knows the feeling of these hands crushing his windpipe beneath unnatural strength too well. Gasps for breath rattle his body, kittenish huffs of air. He scrabbles at the grip that keeps him suspended, mind already drifting before he remembers—

He still has magic this time, feeble though it may be.

Fai lets unformed energy coat his palm and presses white hot power to Ashura’s wrist. The spell forces the sovereign to let go on reflex, nerves overwhelmed by the signal even if Ashura shows no signs of pain.

“Get _back_ ,” Syaoran’s blade drives the beast away, and he stands guard before Fai’s crumpled form. He’s just a _kid_ , and Fai needs to get his shit together, but the shields he wove drain him deeper with every second.

“Can you still fight?” Kurogane crouches at his side, holding Souhi in his left hand to reach out and bolster Fai with his right. Surely, he imagines the desperation he sees in that familiar face, though he cannot deny the warmth of Kurogane’s touch as he pulls Fai up to sitting. Fai nods, but when he tries to stand, he can’t seem to find his feet.

 _Anchors. Escape,_ his thoughts remind with urgency, and his glazed gaze drifts to the pool over Kurogane’s shoulder. If he can just get there, maybe—

“Tch. Alright, I’m ending this,” the swordsman swears. He flicks blood from the tip of his blade and turns back to the lull in the fight, to Ashura and Syaoran staring each other down.

Kurogane tenses, moves to launch himself and renew the rush of battle, and Fai _panics_. He knows that stance—he knows that Kurogane will hurtle himself blade first at the sovereign, and he knows the gaping wound such a move will earn him. He has already seen it once—the chasm carved through Kurogane’s middle as Ashura manages a crystal too large and too close to avoid.

“Don’t—” He struggles to move, unwilling to watch the same senseless death again, even if he knows his own will soon follow and start the whole cycle anew. He sees the glint in Ashura’s eye, _knows_ the Sovereign will do it. Kurogane winds up for a blow, body tense with the intent to strike, either unaware or uncaring of the spell that builds in Ashura’s open palm and—

Unhampered by the mind magic, without the shards that pinned him in place before, Syaoran has enough strength to charge forward at his fellow fighter’s side. Kurogane ignores the Sovereign’s spell, but Syaoran does not. He charges into one broad-muscled shoulder and knocks the ninja out of the path of the blast. “ _No!_ ”

“Syaoran!” Mokona shrieks, trapped behind Fai’s shield. Syaoran’s form shudders, gaping hole in his chest, gaze vacant.

Kurogane says nothing at all. He watches the kid fall with wide eyes, red reflected on red. The body hits the ground with a sickening splash that shakes him from his shock, and he levels Ashura with a look of _pure murder_.

The Sovereign laughs. The fight begins anew, uncaring of the life lost. Kurogane sinks beneath the haze of unadulterated rage and they trade blows at a speed Fai has never before seen either manage.

 _No. No no nononono—_ Terror freezes Fai’s veins to sludge. That blow tore a hole straight through Syaoran’s left side—had to have gouged out his heart and Fai can’t—he can’t look. He can’t—

He can’t do this.

Fai does not know how to heal. He has never had the skill, but he knows how to run. He tugs at the remains of his magic and pulls hard, spinning every last bit of himself into the working. It won’t last, he knows it won’t, but he can’t—he can’t see this. He has to undo it.

First, he summons Syaoran’s body away from the battleground and the desperate struggle Kurogane wages to let the kid rest at Sakura’s side.

“Get them out,” He chokes to Mokona.

“But Fai and Kurogane will—”

“Mokona.” Overwhelmed by grief, the creature does not protest further. Mokona nods, tears pouring as the magic circle builds beneath the others’ bodies.

Fai watches Mokona go, and lets his shields fall, cannibalizing his own magic for one last dimension spell. He won’t—so much blood paints the floor—he won’t watch Kurogane die too, and if he spends all of himself, he has just enough to spare himself the sight.

Deep in the thrall of fury, Kurogane cannot notice as the first workings of Fai’s magic loop over his limbs. He fights like a demon—like a man possessed—careless and matching the beast blow for blow. Claws carve a rent in his upper arm, but he swings Souhi deep into the Sovereign’s hip. Ashura catches Kurogane with a projectile that threads his shoulder, and the swordsman _snarls_. Impossibly, he still raises the sword with both hands despite the spike that severs nerves and tendons. Sharp steel kisses Ashura’s neck and then—

Fai’s magic whisks the man away. Back to the safety of the Witch’s shop.

Luval’s heart chamber rings with silence and Fai’s own rattling gasps. He lets himself fall, doesn’t care when he sees the hem of Ashura’s robe loom into view.

“This does not end simply because you will it so,” the Sovereign chides, as if he were simply teaching Fai another lesson. Exhausted in so many ways, Fai can no longer fight the burn of tears.

“Please,” he begs at Ashura’s feet, barely clinging to consciousness. His body begins to shut down without his magic, and he knows how an ending feels. He can die. He can reset the loop. He just—he has to know. “Why does this—why does this keep happening? What did you do?”

Ashura pauses, head tilted, as if to listen for some sound on the wind. The sovereign kneels at his side, in the river of Syaoran’s blood, and laces pale fingers through his hair in the mockery of comfort.

“Can you not feel it? The tether that leashes your life in place?” Even as one hand continues petting, the other claws at his chest, unnaturally sharp nails digging through flesh and muscle and Fai is in _agony_ as Ashura finds his heart and starts to squeeze. “Even as you lay dying, _you will not d̛̕ie ̕͜͞hȩr̨͜e͢_.”

_……………………………………………………………_

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_……_

T̡̈́̐h̍ͭ̊͌͡í͋ͫ͂̄s̢͋ͮ̂ d̗̜̞̘̟o̱͉̥̫e̸͡ͅs̸̴̪͘ ̡̭̤̯̯̜̕ͅn͏̜̫̞̭̰͙͢ͅͅo̰͎͙͍͚t̲͙̩͍̬͟ e̋̃̋̈́͒͏̻̫͕̲ͅn͖̰ͭ͐̓̍ͩ̈̋͞d̡͔̘͕̜̓̉̑ͫͅ


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wind down and stop. (The not so distant sound of an earthquake)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> Short chapter, sorry about that. Don't worry; the next one is good and long to make up for it. 
> 
> Hope folks are still enjoying this haha. I think this chapter picks up in a few places where 4 maybe drops the ball, despite being short.

* * *

The view matches his memories a few too many times for comfort.

Fai collapses to his knees at the edge of Luval castle and starts to shake apart. He can’t—he can’t he can’t he can’t—he can’t do this again. The empty shell of Celes brings him no comfort as he bites back sobs on the precipice, tears freezing to his face beneath the caress of frigid, unceasing wind. 

His every nerve aches with the memory of the agony of his most recent final moments, chest still sore with phantom pain, but he cannot force himself to care. He just—Stupidly, throughout this cursed journey, he grew to consider Syaoran and Sakura his own children. He thought maybe trying to stay distant from this new one would make it hurt less, but… he—

Syaoran’s just a kid, Sakura already lies mortally wounded _by his own hand,_ and Kurogane… he can’t even begin to unpack the tangle of emotion that snares his thoughts every time he tries to think of that damn man. Four tries in, but it feels like he can do nothing to save them. Going alone doesn’t guarantee he can make it through the fight with Ashura, if he can even get past Kurogane’s unfortunately discerning gaze. Shielding them saves Kurogane, but only gives Syaoran more opportunity to fall. He can summon Sakura from the pool, but Ashura knows how to use her as bait and might easily find a way to destroy her if Fai isn’t careful. _How can he possibly free them from this curse without losing them too?_

He doesn’t know how long he spends sitting there feeling wretched, staring sightlessly at the temptation of a long fall and letting the snow melt and re-freeze into his clothes. “ _This does not end simply because you will it so_ ,” Ashura’s words remind him and he fights not to panic.

The anchors that bind them all in place remain. And though he suspects the pool at Luval’s heart, he can confirm nothing without another fight. Every inch of him protests the very idea. Desperate, he tries sending out a pulse of magic, casting his own out in a wide arc to search for any kind of sign—anything at all that could explain the trap, but he finds nothing unusual. Mokona and Syaoran’s powers both wake curiously to his search. The Beast’s magic floods the whole castle, parasitic and too damn strong to make sense, but… Nothing feels out of the ordinary, comparatively speaking. 

_Anchors, Escape_ , he reminds himself, and the howl of the chasm below devours his frustrated scream. 

He can do this. He can grind his way through the resets and search out new anchor points. He can—he can—

He can’t stop thinking of the way his companions have looked in death—rivers of red, new bodies to join the countless dead of Luval, and Mokona’s shivering grief.

Fai has never had the skill for fixing things, but he knows how to run.

* * *

“Oh! Fai’s back.” He hears Syaoran cheer as he trudges back toward the group. He keeps his gaze pointed forward and does not linger at the castle door. Kurogane will see through him in an instant, so he has to make this quick.

He doesn’t know why the swordsman stands off to the side instead of charging at the doors as usual, but he assumes he must have spent too much time on the ledge. He doesn’t know how long he spent staring off the edge this time. His sense of time is… slipping.

“Alright, let’s move up. You understand?” He hears Kurogane ask above the shrieking of the wind.

“Yes. I don’t like it, but…” Syaoran’s young voice carries, and Fai can’t help but wince. He doesn’t know what they talk about as they march up the front stair past frozen bodies. He can’t afford to ask. He has to get past the door. He needs to run before Kurogane can catch him.

Fai knows better than to try to face his companions right now. His cold-numbed hands shake so badly he can’t even manage the damn spell to open the door. He doesn’t have time to try to force them to make the precise movement he needs so he grits his teeth and burns the spells that hold the door shut away with raw power instead. A stupid, frivolous use of his magic; it costs him more than he can afford to spend, but he doesn’t _care_.

“Fai?” Mokona’s damn skill for empathy catches up to him again. Of course, anyone with any skill at all in the subject would sense his rampant anxiety—the grief and terror that spiral out of him in directionless waves. “Are you… are these people Fai knew?”

He doesn’t answer. He can’t. Footsteps sound behind him and the others near too quickly. If he stays, he’ll have to watch that horrible fight again, and he can’t—can’t—can’t—

Screams trapped in his chest, Fai wrenches the heavy door open just enough to slip through and bolts for the hidden stair beneath the mezzanine.

“Hey!” He hears Kurogane shout, and the chase is on. He feels Ashura’s magic sink into his head, but Fai doesn’t dare slow—picking over bodies in the shadow of twisting columns and spiraling crystal architecture. Long dried blood tugs at the soles of his boots, tacky beneath his steps. (He knows the sensation too well. Has he been fated to climb mounds of the dead from the beginning? How many repeats worth of his companions will join them?)

“ _Damn it_ , Mage—” Usually, he and Kurogane run a near even match for speed, but Fai has a head start and he knows this damn path two times over. He races over the fallen as fast as he dares and keeps himself ahead of the man’s long strides and iron grasp. “If you would just _stop_ for one second—”

Fai slips through the gap in the curtain not a moment too soon. He overpowers the locking mechanism to slam the stone door shut, catching Kurogane’s furious gaze in the swiftly narrowing gap of the doorway in the bare second before it seals.

That face… Fai doesn’t know how to read Kurogane’s expression. Anger makes sense, and the man has plenty of that, but... he doesn’t know what else he thinks he sees. Suspicion? Concern? He wishes—

The dull thud of stone echoes through the dark, cut only by the ragged echo of Fai’s quick breath.

…At least now he knows he can still escape on his own if he needs to. He must have made a mistake last time. Now he just has to find a way to manage the rest of it. ( _Anchors and escape, anchors and escape_ , his mind reminds him on repeat, words set to the backdrop of a red gaze that seems to beg him for things he doesn’t understand and the frozen memory of Syaoran’s lifeless body. He needs—)

He needs to _breathe_ and get his head back on straight.

Fai waits, shivering in the dark with tension and cold as he listens for any sign that the others will try to follow. He knows from at least one loop that Kurogane’s sword techniques can cut into stone, but Souhi’s edge does not appear. Syaoran had figured out the lights and the portal in minutes. He could pick apart the magic of the door easily, but that doesn’t happen either. Instead, he hears a few moments of muffled talking beyond the barrier of stone until… the voices drift away.

They leave.

He tries not to wonder about why, or what they must think of him. He doesn’t know what will happen this loop, and he doesn’t want to speculate. They could get into far too much trouble on their own and they might find a path to Ashura _anyway_ , but he _can’t_ be there this time. He doesn’t have the strength to face that again. Not yet.

Fai turns and starts to find his way up the steps. He can search for the anchors for now and worry about whatever comes after… _after_. The Living Quarters comprise a whole wing of Luval and he knows something strange happens here that links to the earthquake and forces the portal closed. Maybe if he can learn more about that, he can finally make some progress toward getting himself and everyone else _out_ of this hell. (Maybe he just wants a chance to sit still and ignore his responsibilities to them and to Ashura and the memory of the real Fai for more than a few minutes at a time)

* * *

The dark doesn’t hamper him as he treks alone up the eastern tower. He knows this place too well. He has snuck back in from the kitchens in the night too many times _not_ to be intimately familiar with every step. And yet, he almost takes a nasty spill near the second landing anyway.

His damn coat gets in the way of his feet. The edges of his clothes hang heavy with snowmelt—not wet enough to drip, but enough to trail the ground. Without light, he doesn’t notice when he steps on the edge of fabric until the motion jerks him forward.

Fai scrambles—only just managing to get a hand on the railing before he takes a nasty fall. It should jar him a little, but honestly, with everything else running through his head, he barely notices the event. He pauses long enough to regain his balance and resumes rushing over stone. To avoid a repeat, he simply lifts his coat a little higher from the floor, thinking deliriously of maidens in petticoats and trains.

 _Anchors_ , he reminds himself, squinting into the pale grey light that leaks from windows through open doorways on the third landing. They must be here, if anywhere nearby, right? The first two floors are filled with rooms kept for guests and higher officials. Mages all stay on this floor. If there were a trap of some sort left here and keyed to the travelers in the east tower, it _must_ exist on this floor.

Closing his eye, he tries again to feel for anything out of place. He casts his magic out in a wave and senses a hundred tiny spells, dormant doorways, abandoned research, spells for light and warmth hidden in the walls, decaying glyphs to keep the spiraling stone standing firm against the whim of physics. (The shape of Ashura’s magic beneath, looming under the web of everything else like a beast in the deep.) But none of it winds like a ribbon to leash them all here. Nothing even hints at the capability.

“ _Can you not feel it? The tether that leashes your life in place,_ ” he hears Ashura’s words so clearly in memory, and _no_. He does _not_.

His feet move on automatic to the doorway of his old room. Maybe… maybe it just doesn’t activate until certain conditions are met. Maybe if he pays attention to the earthquake this time, he’ll see something he missed. Maybe he can find something to help in the remnants of his old research.

He hangs his damp coat on the back of the desk chair, trying not to think about how familiar the motion feels. Most of his biggest projects lay on the Library floor, but he’d brought a few up to his room. Just odds and ends hadn’t been able to put down at night—the basic sketch of a construct he wanted to make as a companion for Chii, the first stab at a portal with lower magic input requirements that the villagers below could have used to escape to the castle’s heart in an emergency, a music box he’d planned to enchant as a favor for one of the guards… all entirely pointless now.

The fluorite stone that serves as anchor to the portal spell glistens, a flash of color in the grey of the room backlit by the glare of the unceasing blizzard outside. He could use it, he knows. He could go down and try the fight again on his own. Maybe he could battle Ashura to a standstill and search the pool at the castle’s heart. Maybe…

Fai wanders to the bedside, takes off the boots and the military jacket that mark him as a protector of Celes, and crawls beneath the covers. A cloud of dust curls up off the comforter as he disturbs it, but he can’t bring himself to care. He pushes musty pillows away from his face and burrows beneath the blankets instead.

In the early days, after Ashura brought him here, he remembers sometimes he’d spent weeks at a time hiding in bed. Usually, he faced the world without issue. The nightmare of his time in that terrible valley had ended, and he had a purpose to fulfill. He’d taken his need to train and learn to keep up with the unknown travelers very seriously, certain that he could make up for his one, worst mistake. Usually. But some days, he’d just… stopped. Opened his eyes in the morning and couldn’t get any further than that.

He feels like that now—like the world is just too heavy to bear. Like he wants to crawl into unconsciousness and never wake up. The others might need him. They might come upon Ashura at any moment now if they found the stair down fast enough. He should open the doorway and prepare to step through the instant he feels the earthquake. Fai should do a lot of things, but in that instant he chooses to clench his eye shut tight and curl into a tighter ball of misery.

At least he has a front row seat to the way the "earthquake" starts. Nothing fancy causes it, really. No misfiring spell, no decaying, complex ward. No. It begins with a sound—the far-off echo of cracking ice. Vibrations at the right frequency trigger avalanches all the time, and the castle’s weakened east tower works no differently.

He hears the sharp whipcrack of a break in the waste, and the shudder of stone soon follows. He doesn’t bother moving, but he does stretch his magic through the room, watching for the instant a spell might go awry and yank him back in place.

The ground doesn’t shift before the ceiling does, so he doesn’t even spill out of bed before he dies this time. Stone falls atop him like an extra covering, crushing his body between blankets and mattress and grinding him to paste where he lays. It hurts like hell before his spine finally snaps, but he doesn’t have to relive any traumatic memories or face his worst fears made real, so it still feels like a mercy.

It _would_ feel like a mercy. But he has enough time and focus to watch as his end approaches, and with his magic awake and aware he _does_ see the way his own soul unspools and reaches back. A curse weaves out through him, deeper than his magic and down into something he only barely comprehends. Like a tangled web, this thread winds through time and yanks the present back into the past—a wild, untamed working powered by the moment of his death.

 _Fai_ is the anchor.

_……………………………………………………………_

_……………………………………………_

_………………………………_

_…………………_

_……_

_C̢ͨ̔̓̔͑̒á̿̍̀ͧn̿̽ͩ͛ͬ ̡ͨ̈̅̋̄͋y̿̎̚o̓ͧ͝u̧ ̛ͯ̃_ _n̶̉ő̰̩ͨ̏͋͋̎ͮ̃̊ț̜͔͉̝̤̈ ̷̳̜̘͑ͪ̾͑̀ͨ̎͋ͧf̧̰̯̺̹͒̊ę̝͍̼̐̕e̢̤̰̘͔̝̫͋ͭͤ̎͂̑͜ḻ̤̦̲̙̟ͬ͒ͭ͂͋ ̸͇͉̗ͫ̐̇̇̌̆͢ị̵͍̯̣̥̠̤͉̂ͨ̐̍t͔̗͍̠̼̮̰̓ͤ?̡̮̮̮͎͚̦ͮ͝_

_……_

_…………………_

_̷̡̠̺̯͖̭̮̜͔̝̱̳̺̰̝̗̩͈̮ͮ̔̒̾̏͂ͭ̔͊ͥ͑̀͝͡͠ͅ.̉̍̇ͥ҉̵͉̯̳̙̠̩͙̥͓͕̺͚͢.̵̨̣̫̟̘͙̙̲͔̬̺̼̘͓̼͕͕̘̎̊͑ͮ̑͌̎͛̆͌̐͠.̴̶̍̋ͦ͛̉ͫ̓͏͍̩͎͔͚̹a̳̼̝͍̖̲̠̺̞̠̦̟̥͈̺̤̽̓ͤͤ͂̑ͬ̓̎̅̄ͦͪ͆͟͝i̖̬͍̜̥̯͚͛͛̏̓̿ͫ͒̑͋̐̔̚͟͢͡t̸̢̟͇̝̜̼̝͉̟͉̲̯̝͈͉͇̠̖͓͉ͨ͌̈͑́ͨͭͩ̈ͮ͐͘͜.̷̒͑͛̏͛ͯ̔͐̒̈́ͯ͂̈́̈́ͤͨ̊̿ͣ͢͏̻̺̰̙̲̞͇̳̠̣̲̥͚͟ ͗͐ͤ͐ͩͥ͆͛ͩͬͩ́̏҉̴͙̙̱̗̦͈̜̭̟̙͡͝C̢̄͊̆̉̀ͪ͑͑ͪͧ̎̓ͫͪ̃͏̴͎̭̺̰̺̙̞̮̗̘ͅ_̷̨̫͚͉͈̹̮͖̗̠̱͉̳̪̝̙̙̟͚ͣ̔̔͛̂͑̕n̢̨̟̳̘̮̖̻̹̙̰͍̥̒ͨ̿̃͊͆ͪ̓̂͛̈́̆͐̔ͧ̃ͦ̂͢͝͠ ́̄͐̒̅҉̨̖͉̖̻̞̫̞͟͡ẏ̥̩͎̠̼̗͔̝͙̏̈ͥ͑̑ͤ̑̑̄̽ͯ̎ͥ̕̕͡o̷̝̖͖̭͙̥̱̔ͥ̆ͪ̊̊̒͋̈͒ͭͪ̅̎ͣͨͦͧͅ.̣̝̜̮̟͈ͬ̊̉́̆͑̓̉̏̆̎͂ͯ͌ͭͥͯ͡.̸̵̸̨̗̩̯̬̝̯̰͗ͩͯ̏ͫ͌̔̉͂̑̅̇ͯ́̐ͥ̂ͯ͒͡.̸ͮͣ̽͑ͮ͗ͥ͟҉͕̪̜͕͖͕͕̹̝͓̰̕ ͋̅̏̒̋ͣ̎͐ͦ͑̐̈̚͏̛͇̩͓̥̠̥̝̹̜̖̜̪̦̩̰͔͢͡͠ͅͅ-̴͚̹̩͚̩̯̙̗̘̭̱̲̳̙͓̰̫ͭ̆̿̏̒̌͑ͥ̍ͣ͟ā̅̈ͬͩͩ͌̂̏̉͊̚҉̸̦͖̻̙̼̯̰̳͞r̢̢̛̯̼̥̳̝̲͍̼̟̗̤͇̞̦̙̺̟̾̔̽͛ͭ͘͟ ̨̛͕͓̘͍̥̬̤̜̀̊̋̏͆ͧ̑̿̽̐ͣͨ͟͝͠m̸̧͔̼̠̻̻͉͕̘̎̋ͩ̈́͜ȩ̸̤̙̘̻̼̥̬͙̫̮̥͇͈͍ͪ̇͗ͩ̄ͅ?̴̨̣̤̗̣̲̲̻͇͖̬̟̭̘̯̓ͨ͒͘͠_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel that it is worth noting, that while I was writing this, the opening guitar riff for "Roundabout" popped in to my head, and the ending played out in my imagination like a Jojo meme complete with "to be continued" freeze frame on the last sentence. So. There's that.


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things he should learn to expect, but they keep surprising him every time. Syaoran's earnestness, Kurogane's stubbornness, and...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I like this chapter a lot hahaha. Hope you do too.
> 
> I've been deeply enjoying any and all speculation on what you guys think is happening here. :3 I hope my plans can live up to your imaginations~

* * *

Fai does not bother to look at the view.

He doesn’t care to open his eye to the harsh, blinding white of an empty landscape. Too-bright light glares behind the eyelid he can still see, wind screaming in his ears, and he doesn’t need to see to know where he has wound up yet again.

In the wake of his latest death, his body still trembles with the false memory of crushing pain. He feels as if the weight of the whole tower still bears down on him, and he doesn’t have the strength to keep himself standing. All energy escapes him, and Fai simply… falls back. Just lays there in the snow as surely as he’d lain in bed with the world caving in around him.

His mind reels at his newest discovery. He doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge. How does he even begin to—soul magic is even more ridiculously fiddly than mind magic, and Fai has never bothered to study it. What could have caused such a thing, and when? How can he even begin to unravel such a thing? Surely there has to be _something_ he can do. There must be. 

He just has no idea where to start.

As he lies there, snow and ice slowly melt through his neckline. His old coat does a fair job of protecting from Celes’s usual array of elements, but it can’t save him from wet clothes or frostbitten ears. Besides, sleeping in the snow carries its own dangers. He knows better than to lay here too long with the relentless blizzard dropping more frozen white atop him and snowmelt trickling beneath his coat, but he can’t care much now. Apparently, his death powers a curse that resets _time_ to this point. He has tested it enough times to know his location and the distance from this moment probably don’t change that. Crushing, exsanguination, cardiac arrest… Why not add hypothermia to the list? Might make a nice change, dying by going to sleep. Maybe he can just… do that a few times. Catch his breath.

His mind still struggles to comprehend the idea of his curse, even as he starts to really shiver, skin burning with cold where the water seeps in and slowly going numb. How localized is the reset? Do other worlds continue in linear fashion, or does his death somehow drag the whole damn universe wheeling backwards? If he contacted the Witch…

Fai keeps his eye shut tight and drifts off to his own confused thoughts and the tune of the wind howling through the empty valley below.

* * *

The view almost matches his memories, except that it seems somehow sideways.

“Damn it,” also, the wind has become a lot more eloquent since he last heard it. And sounds vaguely like a certain ninja. “Mage, you have _got_ to wake up! Do not go back to sleep, do you hear me?”

“No,” he mumbles, stupidly, and tries not to think at all about the huff of frustrated relief this earns him. He can’t feel the strong hands that hold him up, but he sees the way the world tilts as Kurogane lifts him, easy-as-you-please, from his chosen grave. 

Ah. His frozen mind starts to put two and two together. Not dead yet this loop then. And Kurogane’s here because…?

“Come on, idiot. Were you _trying_ to die?”

“Don’t be stupid. Obviously, I can’t die.” He tries to snark. What comes out sounds much less coherent, words slurring in his mouth in a way that has his companion frowning with worry. Hunh. Okay, maybe he managed to get a little closer to death by freezing than he’d thought.

“Asshole.” The taller man curses, but the word sounds somewhat meaningless when he pulls Fai in close and turns to shelter him from the worst of the wind. Fai can’t actually tell where or how Kurogane keeps him from falling, but he dimly notes the fact that they’re moving forward now, back toward Luval. The pulse of Kurogane’s blood, too close to his face for comfort, helps to wake Fai faster.

“You could just leave me here,” he mumbles, but if the fool hears he gives no indication. He plows on instead, a source of warmth that burns against Fai’s front and bundles him easily right back toward the same _damn_ door.

“We need to make it inside. This storm’s getting worse.”

“Hrm.” Fai agrees, eloquently. Kurogane’s pulse quickens for reasons Fai doesn’t have the brain power to discern right now.

“What the _hell_ were you thinking? You’re the one with the spell to open the castle. Were you just going to leave the kid and the manju out here in this weather?” Notably, the swordsman doesn’t ask why Fai has no regard for him. He believes the lie Fai tells with every repetition of his full name, and he still…

“You c’n cut your way in.”

He feels Kurogane’s gaze slide down to rest on the crown of his head, but he keeps his face buried in the man’s shoulder.

“I could… if I had to.” That deep voice rumbles after a moment too long. Fai shivers, and then he can’t stop, body suddenly realizing how cold it really is. “That’s not what the sword is _for_ though, and I need the blade sharp if I want to keep you idiots safe. So pull yourself together if you’ve ever cared about those kids at all.”

“Sure.” He mutters past his chattering teeth. Syaoran could probably figure out the lock. They don’t _need_ him, not really. And when he dies this is all going to completely reset anyway, so does it even matter?

“Fai!” Mokona’s voice carries just above the screams of the wind, and Syaoran’s soon follows.

“What happened?”

“Not sure yet. We can figure that out when we’re inside.” They have to shout to be heard. Fai can’t tell where they stand. He can’t stop _shaking_ and he just wants to go back to sleep and never wake up. “Mage, I _swear_.” The world swings violently and before he knows what’s happened he finds himself on unsteady feet, pinned to Kurogane’s chest with one arm as the other holds his palm flat to the door.

Oh. They’re here already?

“Ah, Kurogane, I don’t think that’s how this spell works—” Syaoran tries to protest, and Fai laughs. He’s not _wrong_ , but Fai doesn’t need to care how the lock should work. Exhaustion tugs at him in so many different ways he cannot bother to count and his magic feels sluggish beneath his freezing skin. Still, he has more than enough to wash the door with power and burn any trace of locking magic away. “Whoa!”

Kurogane doesn’t wait for an explanation. He bundles Fai over his shoulder one-handed, pushes the heavy stone until they can fit through, and herds the kid and Mokona inside. Once they clear the opening, he forces the door shut and keeps moving, doesn’t stop until he can settle Fai gently against a pillar mostly un-marked by gore.

The grey light through the windows high above casts the spiraling architecture of Luval’s Great Hall in stark shadow and strange shapes, but it does nothing to disguise the terrible scene that the Beast left behind. He feels the familiar wash of Ashura’s magic, hears Mokona quail at the sight, knows the quick intake of breath that marks Syaoran’s discomfort. It’s all so familiar, he can see it play out in memory without bothering to look. The way Kurogane tears off his own coat and tries to bundle Fai in it has never happened before though.

“Is Fai alright?” Mokona asks, voice muffled by Syaoran’s neck. The kid must already struggle with a migraine but he still steps his way carefully toward Kurogane’s chosen spot.

“He’d better be.” The swordsman mutters, fighting against the shaking that wracks Fai’s body and wrapping his own overcoat around Fai’s shoulders. He doesn’t even try to bother with the sleeves, just pulls them forward and tugs them over Fai like a straitjacket. The fabric still feels warm with Kurogane’s body heat. It smells like him, makes Fai think of things he can’t have, and he can’t afford to allow himself this kind of sentimentality. His mind still feels half-frozen, but he can remember at least that much. “Now, what the _hell_ was that?”

Fai keeps his usual empty smile plastered in place out of habit more than anything. The chattering of his teeth transforms it into more of a grimace anyway.

“I tripped.”

“You tripped,” Kurogane repeats, looking for all the world like he would rather strangle Fai than thaw him. “And then you decided to stay where you fell long enough to wind up half-buried in snow? During a blizzard?”

He doesn’t have an answer to that—he doesn’t know how to talk about the weight of the repeats aloud and his usual wit and masks feel just as frozen as his body. Fai sinks into Kurogane’s coat and tries to shrink away from the feeling of eyes on his form.

“Snow is comfortable,” he mumbles.

The swordsman unleashes a truly impressive string of curses beneath his breath.

“ _Fine_. Kid, you think you can handle another one of those warmth things?”

“Yes! I can do that.” Syaoran keeps one hand cupped over Mokona in an attempt at comfort as he steps forward, already working a charm with the other. He places it on the ground at their feet, and immediately, Fai feels magic heat radiate out like a campfire. It _hurts_ as it seeps into his skin, makes his body react as if the warmth will burn, but he knows better. Coming out of a real brush with the cold always feels like this.

(Next time he wants to take a longer break, he’ll do himself a favor and just jump off the damn ledge)

“Good,” Kurogane grouches, standing and backing away with a few too-quick steps. He pulls Souhi free of the spell in his hand, and for the barest moment Fai thinks he will finally meet his intended end. He wonders whether decapitation is actually as painless as it looks, closes his eye and… hears Kurogane’s footsteps trail away. “Keep an eye on this moron. I’m going to make sure it’s actually safe to stick around after those earthquakes earlier.”

“Got it,” Syaoran nods, holding his free hand over the strange little charm he just worked. Well, Fai had wondered why, even buried in snow, he’d come off so much worse than the others. At least now he knows. He feels a little less guilty for leaving them out on the stair. (They don’t need him. Not really.) 

“Oh! It’s warm. Can Mokona look?”

“No.” He and Syaoran answer in tandem. Despite the temperature, the scene itself has not improved. And even without sight, the smell of blood and slow rot hangs cloying in the air. Every time he steps into this place, he remembers the ache of old scars and the terrible price of his existence.

They sit in silence for a while, the still air broken only by the distant sound of Kurogane’s footfalls on the hard floor and the ragged gasps of Fai’s slowly warming breath. Mokona dozes, bored and buried in Syaoran’s coat. Fai’s thoughts start to get away from him.

(What is he even doing at this point? He’s messed this run up so badly already—maybe he should just find the fastest way to kill himself and start over.)

“Fai, do you… Does this country not have this kind of magic?” Syaoran wonders aloud, about the same time that Fai starts to feel his feet again. The kid still feeds magic into the charm as he motions to it, brow furrowed with the persistent ache of Ashura’s spell.

“Not exactly the same, but… similar,” Fai concedes.

“Then, you can’t use it?”

Ah. He sees what Syaoran really means to ask now. Fai sighs, rocking forward until he can get his arms free of Kurogane’s coat. For the life of him, he _cannot_ understand why they should care, but the evidence keeps mounting—in their stubborn worry, in the way they paused the search for Sakura just to make sure he didn’t freeze.

“I think you already know the answer to that, don’t you?” He murmurs, able to manage something like a normal smile.

Syaoran winces, hand wavering over the charm.

“I… I’m sorry, Fai. I don’t know what happened in this place. I don’t know how terrible you must feel right now or what makes you want to run away so badly, but… at least I know that we wouldn’t be the same without you. If it matters at all, we, none of us, want you to go.” 

(“ _No… don’t…_ ,” Syaoran had begged in that first run, so earnestly worried for him even in the full face of his mistakes _._ He can’t help but think of that same scene now.)

Alright. _Alright,_ Fai gets it already. They don’t… none of them will remember any of this as soon as Fai falls, but that doesn’t matter. They are the same people, continuous, even if their memories fade. To treat them otherwise for the sake of his own selfish emotions approaches a monstrous threshold Fai doesn’t think he can cross.

His clothes still cling uncomfortable and wet to his body, and the tips of his ears and fingers would likely never completely recover if he didn’t have a reset to look forward to, but he can probably stand on his own by now. He needs to get going. Maybe if he can make it to the library, he can start researching the damn _soul-magic_ spell and make progress. He wasted this run, but he might still scavenge something from it. He owes their kindness at least that much.

And he can give Syaoran just a little more than that.

“Come here.” Fai gathers his strength and pushes Kurogane’s coat away to lift his arm. His spiraling thoughts and the distractions of the room make it difficult to call the tiny runes he needs to mind. He blocks them out—ignoring the renewed approach of Kurogane’s steps and the way Syaoran’s shoulders raise with tension as he casts.

Fai touches the delicate spell to Syaoran’s bowed head with his hands still numb and burning in turns, watching the way his shield snaps in place and blocks the Sovereign’s far more complex working out. Insidious mind magic batters at his protection, already seeking a way through, but his work holds.

“Oh,” Syaoran blinks, touching his own brow as if that might explain the play of magic there. “I didn’t realize—thank you.”

Fai nods, or tries to. The world swims for just a moment and he has to lean heavily against the pillar at his back. That… had the barrier spell taken this much energy to maintain before…?

It’s probably fine. Probably just a side-effect of nearly dying earlier. Or maybe the longer he waits to confront Ashura, the more power the Sovereign commands?

(Ashura’s magic gets stronger for every kill. Do these loops count as murders? If he spends too long determining how to break the curse, will the Beast become completely unstoppable?)

“…ay…? Fai!”

“I’ve got him. Head for the back of the room. You should see a staircase there. We’ll go that way next.”

“Alright.”

He comes back around to another new scene, Kurogane sheathing Souhi with a flash of Fai’s magic and a wary look at his own palm. Syaoran spares them both an anxious glance as he steps toward the Inner Stair, and it can’t be healthy for a kid to worry about adults like that, can it? (The sight of Syaoran with a hole punched through his chest has not left him.)

“Hey.” Familiar red eyes draw his, strange points of color in the stark grey of the room as Kurogane steps to his side. “Can you stand? We should keep moving.” He holds out one broad hand, waiting to help Fai up again.

If he had more of his sense, Fai would knock that hand away. Better to keep Kurogane distant when he wants so badly to pull the man closer, but he just can’t muster the energy to deny himself.

Kurogane’s touch feels impossibly warmer than even Syaoran’s charm as he pulls Fai easily to his feet. Fai tries not to lean into it too obviously as he scrambles not to drop Kurogane’s dampening coat.

He doesn’t know what to say. Before, he could have cheered something inane about _how strong Kuro-papa is~_ , or maybe made a stupid comment about the bad weather. After Tokyo, he might have found something cruel to try—a jab at the way Kurogane keeps finding ways to weigh himself down maybe. Now, standing in the literal ruins of his old life with death on the horizon and an endless curse weighing on his mind, he can’t seem to manage either mask.

“… Thanks. For letting me borrow your coat.” And a hundred other things besides. He holds the garment out and stares down at his own feet, forcibly stalling the shivers that already threaten a return.

“Keep it.” Kurogane pushes it back and positions himself to walk behind Fai—still ready to catch him if he should waver. “You probably still need it more than me. Besides, I think I saw a place with extra clothes off the stairs. We can look there first.”

“I’m—” Fai doesn’t know what he means to say. Kurogane keeps _doing_ these things—helping him when he doesn’t deserve it, bringing him kicking and screaming back from the brink every time, and he _hates_ it but he also…

Kurogane waits for him to find the words, patient. Always so _damn_ patient, even when Fai frustrates him until he could scream. Why does he _do_ that? Why does he fight so hard to keep Fai around?

Fai clutches the coat a little tighter to his own chest, resettles it over his shoulders like a cape.

“You’re right, of course,” he gives up on the words that refuse to escape his throat and makes for the stair.

* * *

  
Fai expects an end.

He doesn’t know when, but he knows he will find it before he gets them away from here. He assumes he will face Ashura again. Or perhaps the shield he gave Syaoran, siphoning more and more of his magic with each passing minute, will slowly drain him dry. Whatever the cause, he knows death will find him and he will end up back in the same spot, staring down the long fall to the valley. Even if he ran to another country, he thinks it would chase him down. He can’t explain how he knows he _must_ face another death—but the thought sticks with him, an anchor to his every thought, a strange inevitability.

He just didn’t think it would find him this quickly. Or for such a _stupid_ reason. 

One he really should have foreseen, all things considered, especially given his last run, but he has never been the kind of person to learn well from his mistakes.

The edges of his clothes drag low, heavy with snowmelt, and the addition of Kurogane’s coat doesn’t make them easier to manage. Tired and thinking of kindness he doesn’t deserve, focused on the quiet discussion Syaoran and Kurogane maintain behind him, he doesn’t notice when he steps on the edge of fabric somewhere near the dining floor.

He actually, honestly, fucking _trips_.

Exhausted and tangled in his own wet clothes, he doesn’t manage to get a hand on the railing when the world shifts and his misstep sends him hurtling forward toward the next landing. He flips, heels over head before his skull dashes the edge of stone. Pain and warmth bloom from his brow as skin splits, but he barely feels it. He has just enough time to glimpse the others’ horrified faces before he tumbles again and his own inertia snaps his damned neck.

Fai’s soul unspools, and time wrenches out of place.

_……………………………………………………………_

_……………………………………………_

_………………………………_

_…………………_

_……_

_̟͉͎̩̜̜͆̔̀̔̍n̤͕̣͔̊̉ͣͦͯͪo̗̅͂̀͌̈̃̈́n̓̾e̵̬̮̠̰̬̘ͥ͗ͥ̉͌̌͆ ̨̫̪͙̝̬̼̳ͥọ̧̺̬̯ͤf͕̩̀́̉ͣͮ ̘̙̝̙͞ū͈̬͈̗ͮ̏̇ͪͪŝ̸ ̡̲̖͎̔̆̎ͧ̂͑̉͛w̴̻̙̞͕̫̝͉̐ͤͯ͜͜a̯̮̬̤̣ͧͬ͑̚n̠͙̰̻͑̓t̰̰͚̫̝̒̈́̏ͤ͟ͅ ̸͉̮̦̼̤̟͇̣͓͉̻͎͓̿͋͌͛͂ͫ̀͋ͣ́̑ͤ͗͗͟y̵̢̝͇̯̜̏͆ͫ̃̈́ͫ̅ͩͫ̓̅̈́ͭ͌̊͜ǫ̸̼̮̣̯̪̺̥̥͒͑́ͯu̶̱̥̳̲̻̮̱̰̞̲̣̮̝͖̳͇̻̥͇ͭ̒͆̃ͨͩ͊̆ͭ̔͊̄͗̂ͤ́͢ ̐ͯ̄͑͛͌̾̅ͫͩ͗̚͟͏̧̲̭͇̺̟͜͝t̯̳̟̣̝͕͎̪̯̻̦̰̼ͫ͆͌̂͒̌͑ͭͭ̉̌͟͝o̱̦͙̣̖̭͙̻̬̩̳͑̿̾ͩ̔͐̂̚͘͞ ̶̵̜̮̰̖́̓ͯͮ̇͑̎̎͛ͬ͒͊ͭ͑͞g̸̨̛̖̭̱̗͙̪̭͓͓̀̄̈̓ͬͫ̑͆͆o̵̟̞̩̼̯͉̼̙͓̼̗̭̮͈͓͕̙ͧ͆͑̄̇̇͛_

_……_

_…………………_

_………………………………_

_̥̪̦̝̦͛͆̄̓̏̃̓̕͡C̷̊̊͌̅͌ͧ̇̈́̅̑̓ͬͥ͘͏̜͍͙͍͈̜͖̻͕̘̤̞̜͎͜.̢̛̰̹͈͙̎̾ͪ͗͗̂̿ͪ͆ͯ.̷͉̦̗̰̺̩̥̝̪͙̬͇͔̫̘ͮͥ̀̿͑͑̂͗͑ͥ̒͊͋͋̉̒̐̈́͗̕͢͡ͅ.̸̵͓͉̹̪̯̜̬͇̖ͪ̄̎ͯ̅ͩͯ̓̎ͧͫ̃̃́̕͘̕ ̷̶̳̟͚͍̻̰̼͇͍͚͎̹̲̓̃ͨͭ͆ͬ̾ͧͤͮ́̑͛ͅy̹̗̘͎̜̅̑̂̄̿̄̓͒ͨ̄͑͌͘͞ͅ-̸̴̥͚̣̠̦̇̀ͬ̈̆̑̂̐̎ͦ̏ͥͧ̍͋ͪ̕͘͞ų̨̈͋͛́̇ͪ͒͗̑ͤͧ́̚͟҉̠̱̭͕̱̥̼͖̯̬̣̗ ̴̨̡̫̳̩̘̥̳̜̝̝̣̬̤͉̩̗̱̦͌̀͐ͤ͠ḧ̳̹͓͕͚͂̇̃̓̚͡ͅͅe̊̿ͥͨ̉̏͌ͪ͑̇̽ͯ̍͋ͨ҉̛̰̹͍̮̣̭͙̳͚̦͈̙̜͚̗̰̣̰͟͜.̴̦̮̤̦̟̩̈͋̓ͤ̅̏͂ͥ̾̇̑̃͆ͮ̿̚ͅ.̧͖̟̘̱̘̹̦͕͕͔̮͔̱̍̃̀ͥ̆͂ͯ͆̇͂̀̊͟͝͝.̀ͨ̅̅̍ͮ̅͌ͪ̋̑͌͌̏ͩ̃͘҉̢̝̤͇̻͙̮̰̻̟͍̪̝̜̥͢ͅͅ ̗̞̦̿̊ͨ̓ͣ͛͂͜͞-̉͗̊͆͊̏͌ͩ̿̉̾̑͒̚͡͏̠̤̦̣̩͉̭͔͈͘͡ẹ̴̢̨͎͔̞̼͚̩̹͙̗͕̠̮͙͈̫͎ͯ̄̍̍͐ͤ̇͛ͯ̏ͨ͒̅͋ͮͩͧ̿̆̕͝ͅ?͔̻̜̣͎̟̯͔͎̙̻͕̦͙̜̜̃͋̅͒͗̔̀͊̉̆̃͌͢ͅ ̖͈͚̾̉̒̄̈́̊̆͑͋̑ͫ̊̈́̈́ͭ̚͠Y̶̧͍͖̳͉̪̻̩͔̘̳̻̜̠̥̝̠̯̠ͨ̇̌̅̌ͪͬͧͥ̅͠-̷̸͈̣̲̩̰̫̾ͮ͊̿̈ͤ̐̒͢͞ͅ-̷̼͇̮̜̹̜̦̬̤̭͚̼̹͚͕͓̈́̈́̂͌̋̓ͮ͊̔̊͑̑̎͑̄̏̚ͅͅi̧͗̉́ͯ̈́ͥ͒̏̍͏̶̭̭͖͉̪̖̦̼͖̬̰̞̬̩͎!̛̝̠̹̈ͬ̔͝_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gravity. The third thing he should have expected was Gravity.


	7. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The curse slowly reveals itself. Celes divulges another secret Fai can't understand, and loops continue whether he wills them or no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I knew I'd stalled out on this but didn't realize I had a whole chapter waiting in the wings that hadn't posted yet!
> 
> Ch 8 is still giving me trouble but I'm gonna work on it now. Far slower updates but we're not dead! 
> 
> Drop me a line if you enjoy?

* * *

He can’t tell whether the view matches his memories or not, because he cannot stop _laughing_ long enough to look.

Fai can’t control himself—deep, full-body laughter shakes him until he gasps for breath. He laughs until he cries, cheeks aching with the motion and the sting of freezing tears as he bends double at the edge of Luval. The howling wind swallows the hysterical sounds that escape him, and he can’t help himself—it’s just such a _stupid_ way to go.

Sure, he does feel at least a little bad about it—he hadn’t made any progress, and if Ashura gets stronger with each loop, he has just wasted one round needlessly. That, and leaving the others so soon after they’d just spent all that effort to help him feels a little ungrateful. Syaoran and Mokona had seemed honestly devastated in that brief instant he’d managed to spot them between the whirling revolution of the ceiling and the ground. And Kurogane…

As usual, he can’t quite unpack Kurogane’s expression. Disbelief? Desperation? Frustration? He doesn’t know. He does know that his last glimpse of the man saw him lunging forward, still carried forward by the inertia of his failed attempt to catch Fai’s falling body. Kurogane keeps trying to save him, and Fai will never understand why…

All of that to say, he could do without the dramatic audience, but he thinks he can easily declare that his favorite way to die so far. Not completely painless, but in comparison to the attempts previous, he would take it any time. Plus, it’s _hilarious_.

Hell. Okay, a plan. He needs to start coming up with a plan before he lands himself in another fit of hysterics. Problem number one: He carries a curse that eats his soul to yank time out of place, and it triggers every time he dies. He knows quite a lot about curses and dying. He knows next to nothing about soul magic or temporal theory.

Problem number two: literally nothing about the situation that originally brought him here has changed. Fai slowly drifts closer to the event horizon of his own insanity with every repeat, but he still has trouble forcing his idiot heart to face the idea of slaying Ashura. He still needs to retrieve Sakura’s body and get her and the others out of this dead world and on their way without letting them come to harm. He still has to say goodbye to any dream of seeing the real Fai alive again.

So, he just needs to find a solution to the first problem that doesn’t make the second one unworkable. Somehow.

(…He’s never getting out of here, is he?)

The library. He’d planned to end the last run with the library and look for research on magic that uses the soul. He can do that now instead. He just has to watch his step. 

Fai fights against another fit of giggles and shakes his head, turning back toward the palace steps and the people he keeps disappointing. Better to get going now before he winds up with a wet coat again, he supposes.

* * *

He makes it back to the threshold early enough to find Kurogane still battering himself against the door. Syaoran and Mokona watch dubiously off to one side and shy away from the bodies that litter the stair.

“Kurogane…I don’t think the lock will break that way,” Syaoran calls out, wincing as the man’s shoulder meets solid stone hard enough to make the whole landing echo with the resulting thud.

“Kuro-papa is too stubborn. Maybe he can break the lock with his hard head?” Mokona attempts to call up the ghost of cheer, already threatening to hide in the collar of Syaoran’s coat. Fai glances at the three of them and firms his resolve. They will never remember many of the ways he already owes them, but… this is a research run. He will not fix this in a single go. Not without understanding the curse. He can afford to try to make them comfortable instead.

“Mokona,” He calls, and the kids perk up at the sound of his voice. Kurogane doesn’t turn away from his post at the door. “The room ahead is… worse than this. You might want to hide for a bit.”

“Worse?! But all these people…” White ears droop. Mokona looks sadly at the remains of a guard Fai tries very hard not to recognize (too late—he knows the fall of the man’s hair even with his face missing. An older man—one of the two who’d first cheered him on for smiling and he _cannot afford to think about this_ —) “Fai… these were people Fai knew, weren’t they?”

“They were,” he agrees. He can’t afford to think on it long. The full knowledge of everything lost looms just behind his resolve and the strange dissociation engendered by repetition. If he slows down to recognize it he will not be able to keep moving, and he begins to worry whether he has enough time to keep dying in bed and cheering himself up with black humor. “There is a… a Beast here. One I couldn’t stop, and because of that—”

He thought he could explain—that he could talk about this, but the words stick in his throat. Not yet. Maybe in a few more loops he’ll have the strength to say what needs said, but now…

 _Thud_ , the stone resounds again. And honestly, how has that stubborn man not dislocated his damn shoulder yet?

“I’m sorry. I wish… I mean,” Syaoran frowns. “We can’t change the past, but… after we find the Princess, do you want help sending them off? I don’t know if your world does things like that, but maybe it would help?” Syaoran offers, tentative and ever so serious.

Fai blinks. Shaken from his downward spiral by the offer. This Syaoran is so unbelievably earnest and honest and still a damn kid. Syaoran barely knows Fai, even _if_ he counts the time spent watching through the eyes of another. Syaoran would defend him from Ashura and tries to talk him out of suicide and wants to help him bury the dead of Luval.

 _Fuck_. He has failed this child already in so many ways, and he can’t—

“I don’t think we’ll have time, but that’s very kind of you to offer.” Fai manages not to choke as he stumbles through the words, and grants Syaoran a watery-smile.

Mokona hums with upset, probably sensing his wild merry-go-round of his emotions and choosing the smarter road. The construct takes his advice to heart and nods, burrowing into Syaoran’s neckline and curling into a ball near the hollow of his throat. “You’ll tell Mokona when we find Sakura, right?”

“Of course,” Syaoran nods, pulling at his own coat until Mokona can fit more comfortably there. Fai watches them and tries to pull his fraying heart back together. Research run. Get to the library. Look for soul magic. Priorities.

 _Thud._ Kurogane strains once more against the door, another shoulder push with all his strength. What the hell has gotten into that man? How long has he been keeping this up for every loop? He’ll take himself out before any chance of a fight at this rate. Fai trails the last few steps forward and releases the lock over Kurogane’s shoulder, sending him stumbling into the room.

“Careful,” Fai calls, “wouldn’t want to trip.” Kurogane shoots him a glare that could quail a sane man on sight, but Fai thinks he may have lost the illusion of sanity a long while back. (He still can’t believe he _died falling down the stairs._ It’s just so _ dumb_.) The threat of laughter tugs at his lips. Fai bites the inside of his cheek to try to keep it at bay.

“I don’t see what you find so funny about this.” As he grouches, Kurogane shakes his sore arm free and gestures at the room—all the bodies scattered at their feet.

“Neither do I,” Fai agrees with a smile. (He doesn’t want to step back into the Great Hall again—doesn’t want to smell the stink of human putrefaction or pretend he can’t recognize the ruined dead, but he owes too much to the living not to.) He sets his jaw, buries the laughter that threatens to turn to sobbing if he ever let it, and follows Kurogane inside. 

* * *

Fai puts on the best show of his life, shoving his feelings beneath the façade of cheer and focusing on the path forward. He threads a shield over Syaoran’s mind at the very entrance, before Ashura’s magic has a chance to form a stranglehold, does not look at the scene of the slaughter Ashura left behind, and guides them once more toward the inner stair and the public floors below. He pays more attention to his footfalls this time, but without a prolonged stay in the snow, his clothes don’t get in the way.

Meanwhile, annoyed by his little trick with the door, perhaps, Kurogane storms ahead. He had to pause at the center of the Great Hall to wait for direction, but once Fai pointed out the stair, he’d charged forward and has not slowed since.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Fai calls down to Kurogane’s tense silhouette a few steps below. He can’t see all the usual signs of the swordsman’s irritation from here, but he can sense it—in the heightened steady pulse of Kurogane’s blood and the way he can’t seem to meet anyone’s gaze.

“Down.”

“Yes,” his blunt answer startles a laugh free from Fai’s throat, “I suppose that’s true.” He hadn’t meant to rile Kurogane up so badly… Maybe next time Fai can handle the front door with a little more grace.

“Where _are_ we going? If it’s okay to ask.” Syaoran seems to have less trouble talking without the headache hampering him. He trails in Fai’s wake with Mokona perched in his collar, a little less wary now they’ve left the carnage of the Great Hall behind.

Fai… could tell them they’ll go straight to Sakura, but that lie would come to light too quickly. He could tell them he doesn’t know how much of this will last and the world will loop endlessly until he finds an answer to this new curse, but somehow, he feels that might not go over well either.

“It is okay,” he stalls, searching for the false-truth in between that might save him. “I told you before, there is a Beast here, right? I couldn’t defeat it, but I worry we might find the Princess near that place, so… We’re going to look for a way to win.”

Kurogane pauses on the step ahead, glancing behind himself to pin Fai with a narrow-eyed stare. Suspicion bleeds from every line of Kurogane’s bearing. Fai’s heart stutters in his chest beneath the weight of that gaze, still surprised at the way that man can strip his lies bare with nothing more than a look. For just a moment, he thinks Kurogane will turn around on the spot and confront him for the deception, but he doesn’t. The instant passes. Kurogane simply shakes his head and continues on again.

“Something so scary has Sakura?!” Mokona startles, leaning so far forward that Syaoran has to scramble to keep the tiny being from tumbling free. “Shouldn’t we go get her right away? What if it hurts her like it hurt the others here?”

“The Beast is very smart. We’ve come to find her, and if she dies, we will have no reason to stay.”

“So it will use her as bait…” Syaoran concludes, hands clenched to fists at his sides. “I don’t like the thought of leaving the Princess there, but if this thing managed to stop you before, we’ll need a plan, right?”

“Exactly.”

One last flight of stairs, and Fai feels already winded as they step into the grandeur of the castle library. His head and neck still ache distantly with the memory of pain, and he can’t remember if any of his previous deaths ever hurt this long. (How many chances at this will he have, really?) The shield he keeps running over Syaoran’s mind drains him too—not nearly as bad as the last time but still enough to notice. He might not have as much liberty to take his time and search for soul magic research as he’d like.

Kurogane storms ahead, still furious for some slight Fai hasn’t quite figured out. He makes his way to the center of the cavernous room where he finally stops and stands guard like the world’s grumpiest sentinel, uncaring or unaware of the bloated structure of protective spells that alight at his approach. Nothing that would harm him, but the wards react to his aggression warily, nearly powerful enough to become sentient constructs in and of themselves.

“So many books!” Mokona cheers, glancing up at the towering shelves with enough awe to rival Syaoran’s. Fai shakes away the strange mix of exhaustion and nostalgia that grips him as he watches the kids examine this place and gets to work. (Hadn’t it seemed just as wonderous to him once?)

“We’ll need to find a weakness. The castle Library has more knowledge than anywhere else in the worlds I know, except maybe Lecort. We’ll just have to—”

A low roar hums through the room. He knows now, what causes it: the distant crack of ice, the cascading slide and the rubble of the eastern tower that makes the ground tremble.

“An earthquake?” Syaoran wonders aloud, and Fai hums his agreement.

“Something like it,” he says with certainty, trying not to think about what his old room must look like now or to imagine the feel of a tower’s worth of stone grinding his spine to dust. His back aches, shoulders bowing with phantom weight. “It shouldn’t reach us here, but we’ll need to hurry.”

“Right.”

Syaoran can’t read Ceresian, of course, but he’s quick and detail-oriented enough that Fai can write a phrase or three down and have him look for books that match. Of course, the bestiaries he has Syaoran pulling only serve as distractions for his real research, but Syaoran never needs to know that. He takes the scrap of parchment Fai hands him from the Library lectern with gravity and studies it until he has it memorized. Then, the kid goes at his task, moving methodically through the section Fai points out to him and amassing a pile of books with such honest dedication that Fai feels horribly guilty for deceiving him. He knows things are better this way, but he has already lied to Syaoran enough times to wish he could stop.

Kurogane, on the other hand…

“Is there a reason you’ve decided to follow me?” Fai asks as they step deeper into the section specializing on magic theory, trying to ignore the feel of Kurogane’s eyes on his neck. The swordsman’s gaze could set him alight if he let it, but the slow drain of his magic reminds him he doesn’t have time for that. The magical practice and advanced studies sections all turned up empty, and he is running out of good places to look. Fai pauses at the center of the theory section, waving away a subtle illusion woven to hide the presumably more dangerous books from sight. All the while, Kurogane watches him like a damned hawk.

“You’re planning something.”

Fai picks up the first book in the row and thumbs through it idly. No, no—too theoretical and he’s not entirely convinced the author has ever seen a working at the level of the soul for themself.

“Yes, I’m planning on getting the Princess back.” Not the second or third either. Damn it, the books on this shelf have a lot of high-minded ideas, but he needs something _practical_. His gaze dances over spines, trying to narrow the titles down to one that sounds more meaningful than the rest. He plucks another free at random. There must be something here. Ashura only ever bothered to hide the dangerous books, so there must be—

“Sure. Maybe the kid believes that.”

“But you don’t?”

Kurogane’s silence speaks for itself. Fai flips through pages of notes, too focused on the unspoken conversation to really read them. He huffs, slamming the book back onto the shelf and ignoring the sting Ashura’s wards chastise him with for the rough treatment. He already has a hard enough time trying to puzzle this damn thing out given the sheer difficulty of soul magic as a subject and the way his emotions threaten to break free at any minute. Kurogane’s laser focus makes him nervous on the best days, _and he is running out of time_.

“Kurogane, I know you’re worried about them, but I promise I’m honestly looking for a way to help. So, if you could please—”

“It’s not the others I’m worried about right now.” The swordsman doesn’t even pause at the use of his full name, and that in combination with his words catches Fai off balance. He turns and looks against his better judgment, searching eye caught by Kurogane’s sincere worry. “What are you really trying to do?”

“I—” he starts, not sure yet what he means to say. _Yes, I know it might not seem like it, but this has actually happened seven times already. Not this, exactly, just. Being here. And I’d like it to stop happening _Or maybe, _I have somehow accidentally trapped us all in a repeating hellscape centered on the literal worst events of my life and I need it to end before I lose my mind_. Ah yes, both options that will go over _so well_. “I need to—I’m looking for—”

““.̨̨͖͚ͫͣͩͨ.̉ͪ͏̹̗̣̜̹̣.̧͙̪͋ͪ̃ͬͥ̾͝u̓ͣ̆̒̄̓ͭ̽҉̡̰͕̱͢-̡͂̏͆͋͊̂͏̗͝ǐ̴̷̧͎͉̻̣͔̎̍ͭ̆̏ͮ”

The voice that almost reaches him is little more than a whisper—so quiet and garbled he could almost believe he imagined it, except that he sees Kurogane react to it too.

“Was that Syaoran?” He wonders aloud, but as soon as the words leave him, he knows better than to believe them. That sound hangs too strange in the castle air—it rings… alien and almost mechanical. Misplaced.

“ _Hey kid, did you say something?_ ” Kurogane’s shout cuts through the silence of the library, much to the buzzing ire of the ward system. His low register echoes through the nearly empty hall, but if Syaoran hears, he doesn’t respond. United by worry, they trade a wary, wordless glance before Kurogane steps back toward the place they last left the others. He rolls his wrist and summons Souhi in a smooth motion, disappearing between shelves.

Surely, nothing could have come here to sneak up on them. The wards would have reacted to anything save Ashura, and Fai would have felt—

…He doesn’t actually know whether or how long he can trust that Ashura will remain in the heart chamber, he realizes with belated horror. What if…? 

“Manjuu? Kid? Hey!” Kurogane’s voice grows more distant the further back to the entrance he walks. Fai hadn’t realized how deep into the library he’d already gone, rushing past books. So easy to forget the size of this place at times when it still feels like a second home.

He pulls the illusion over the dangerous books back up out of habit more than anything and stares uneasily toward the rows of historical theory books, long-disproven and kept merely for collection’s sake. He thinks… he doesn’t know what he heard, but he thinks it came from this direction.

Fai waits until he hears the distant murmur of voices—until he’s certain Syaoran and Mokona are safe with Kurogane, and then he steps towards dustier tomes.

He has a skill for sensing living things, and almost always has. It used to comfort him, when he could look up and know Fai was still there, high above. Throughout these repeats, he has endeavored not to focus on it. Too upsetting to cast his senses out and realize only his companions and Ashura remain for miles and miles and miles, with Sakura’s body flickering so faint she may as well have already died. too much like the hell of the timeless valley that trapped him once before.

Unless his sense has suddenly failed him, the situation has not changed. Fai steps through rows of books that have not been opened in decades and feels like an idiot as he calls out, “Hello?”

“T.͖͙͇̰̝͗ͪ̏̐.̯ͮ̌͗͟͡i̬̪̻̣͍͇ͦ́ͧ́̿̐̾͢͞-̷̨̯͍̰̘̬̣̬̦ͨ̃͋̓ͯ͞ ̸̛̺̳ͥ̊_̷̢̥̞͓̱̻̟͓͛̒͆̏͒͟y͎̼̘͇̞ͧ̈́̋̿͗̏̊͟!̸̳̤͇̭̤͓̈̃̄̇͠͝”

That strange sound again. Fai turns toward the place he thinks he hears it, deeper in, past theorems and into old research notebooks, uncategorized and nameless. The wards of this place keep the books pristine, but even so the spines of a few of the tomes back here look too fragile and ancient to touch. Fai glances between them, feeling completely off-base and confused for the first time in several repeats. What could possibly—?

Hair stands on the back of his neck, nerves prickling with static as he catches sight of the mote of light floating up ahead. It zips over shelves, visible for just a second and casting no shadows as it goes.

It could be… it could be a lot of things. A malfunctioning enchantment? A spell for light left unattended for too long and running on the dregs of its caster’s faded life force? No reason to just assume…

Fai picks up the pace and follows.

“…? … … —ere the fuck did he go? Mage!?” He hears the jumble of footsteps and Kurogane’s voice echo between the shelves.

“Oh no! Did the Beast get him?” Mokona’s worry guilts him into answering, despite his distraction.

“Just a second!” He barely dares to blink, ignoring the way the wards sting him for daring to shout and trying to focus on the strange light up ahead. It swings onward, skating back and forth along a single path. He can’t tell, but he thinks maybe if he squints, he can almost see—

The mote notices he’s caught on and rushes forward faster. It forces him to run just to keep up, heart hammering in his throat. The strange light winds over an ancient desk and past a study abandoned long before the castle’s more recent tragedies, spins him into a dead-end corridor with a threadbare runner near the very back wall of the Library.

“Ḧ̠̠̤̣͙͈̽̕͞u̖͉͓̪͇͓̜ͫͪ͌_̳͉̼̠̰ͪ̓͒r̈́̐ͩͮ̈́̚҉̪̹̠͓̹̩̼̦͈y̽ͪ̒̀̊͏̡̭̘ͅͅ!̯̰̱̝̮̞͎͂̑ͫ̌͋ͣ̚” It chimes, and the sound makes Fai’s head hurt.

Kurogane and Syaoran spill out into the corridor far further down, Mokona still clutched to Syaoran’s chest, Souhi’s bared surface throwing strange reflections over the spines of ancient books.

“Mage, you can’t run off like—!” Kurogane barks, voice faltering as he spots the strange sight ahead. “鬼火?” Mokona’s spell doesn’t catch the word, and Fai has never heard it before. He doesn’t _care_. He thinks maybe— “What the fuck are you doing? Don’t chase that!”

“鬼火? Where?” Oh great. So Syaoran knows the mystery phrase. It doesn’t matter. Fai tunes their conversation out and focuses. He thinks maybe, beneath the warped noise that cloaks that voice he hears something familiar.

“Fai?” he whispers, barely daring to breathe the name aloud, but the light ahead does not slow. It speeds to the dead end and sinks right through carved stone. His steps stutter to a halt before he can break his nose on the hard surface. Fingers trembling, he puts his palm flat on the place where it vanished and feels—

A spell. An illusion—denser and even more skilled than the ones that hide the forbidden books. He doesn’t know the key to this one or the way to pull it aside and he doesn’t care to try and find it. He shouldn’t use his remaining power frivolously, but in the moment, he doesn’t remember what caution means. The mage floods his hand with the force of his magic and lets it overwhelm the barrier in a dazzling display of raw-blue and blinding white.

He stumbles as he crosses the threshold of the secret study, eyelids heavy with exhaustion and the dregs of his own power burning like fire in his veins with every draw of the shield he wove. Kurogane’s voice echoes out behind him, a string of curses or a warning or maybe both. He can’t quite hear. He has to find Fai—figure out why a ghost wanted him here. (Why _now,_ why not any of the countless times before when Yuui has needed him most.) If this is a cruel joke, he—

Ashura’s wards extend even here, keeping the many burgeoning shelves of reams of personal notes pristine, but the cleaning spells do not. The air stirs with swirling dust as he steps with cautious awe toward the mote of light, frozen still and lingering by a shelf toward the back.

“Y̥͖̼̟̆̓͊ͮ͐͑͟o̦̮̹̼̪̥̻͍̊͑ͦ̒̚ú̡͊̋͊͋͂ͪ̋͏̱ͅ'̊̋̍̍̓̍҉̴̦̝̝͎͈r̷̡̞̖͔̻̤̯͉ͩͩ͟e̷̡̱̊ ̴̠͙̣̹̹͍̪̪ͩ̄ͯ̒ͤ̽̍͋ã̷̬̺̣͔͈̣̰ͫͧ͒ͧ̔ ̛̫̹͙̫̺ͬb̨̪ͧͭ̄̿į̷̸̫̟̺̺̓̈́͆̂͐t̾̎͌́͏̥͉̟̯̹̝͚̭ ̢̛͕̯̙̻̈́̃̕tͥͩ̀̽̎̄ͤ̍͏̴͉͎͓̝̩̮͇͇o͕͎̊͐o̩̟̫͉̰̘͕͒̽ͥ͒ͦ͆ͩͭ͞ ̘̺̞̣̬̩ͤ̉̒ͯ̑̃͝l͎̥̩͖̮̻ͫͩ̔̿̚ͅa̲̟̳̩̗̓̕͡t̨͇͇͇̮̬̰̼͙ͥ̏̓̔e̸̳̞̞̞̺̮̻̾ͭ͂.̷͖̠̳̣̈́͗̑ ̭͔̇ͤͥ”

The silhouette he can almost see sighs on his approach, and before he can pick apart the nearly audible words, the room begins to shake. Books tremble in their places. Further away, he hears a few fall—feels the protests of the testy wards.

“Get out of there!” Kurogane’s voice sounds from the no-longer-hidden door. Fai has just enough time to catch the strangest glimpse of terror in ruby-red eyes before the tremors build to a fever pitch and send the shelf behind him tipping forward.

If he had more of his magic and a hint of wherewithal, he could have shielded himself from the force of ancient, carved stone and the pristine pages of ward-washed books, but he doesn’t. He stands there like a fool, hapless and helpless as the shelf crashes over his empty head. He doesn’t even know for sure what kills him—the force of the weight on his skull or the violent reaction of the glutted wards as the damage pushes them to lash out, completely unpredictable.

In the instant before his soul unspools, he sees the ghost of Fai, sitting beside him with his knees tucked to his chin. Frowning. He doesn’t look like he had when he died—more like he could have if they’d both been fed and allowed to heal. Has to be a hallucination, right? A trick?

The illusion opens its mouth and the threads of a curse drag time screaming backwards once again.

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_Į̳͖̟̭̾̽͗̔̕t͇͈̬̱͙̋ͣͅ’̩̫̬̣̩ͨ͐̄ͥ͆ͬ̏ͭ͢͜͟s̶̲̖͎̮̤͙͗̀ͅͅ ̙͖̞͖̟̱͓̐̐̓̓ͥͤ͆ͦn̷̳̝̔ͦ̈́ͫ̄͆ͤ͂͜͠o̗̥ͫ̑͌ͤ̈́̏́t̯̹̻̬̱̱̦͚͒̑̔͐ͪ̓̚ ̳͙͉̉͊̑ͯ̅t̛͕̖̣͎͉̯͚̦̰̽̐ḥ̺̥͙͙̙̜̯̱ͩ̈̈́̓͆̂̑̿e̴̪̩͖͗ͤ̌̌ͯͨ ̢̛̞̤̫͔̖̙͕̮̾͌ͪ̓̄ͭ͝õ̪̘̊͗̉͘t̛̰̯͓͇̬̯̱͚̠ͯ͆ͮ͟h̼̯̪̻̥̽͌ȩ̳̦̣̥̳̪̎r̡̝̳̞̹̰̖̒͑̑̇s̸̨̺̞̩̳̑ͬ͌̽ ̘̿̉̓͐͜͡͞I̧͕̩̝̬͔̝̥̾͂ͯͮͩ͊̌̿̓’̨̱͍̼ͦ̎̑̒ͣͮ̊m̷̝̬͍͍̰̍̾ͮ͜ ̤̯̣̗̭̠̝͍͇̓ͫ͊͒̕w͉̯̥̝̰̟͔ͪ̾͛͗ͨͨ̾̅̂͠o͖͎̺ͯ̒̾ͮ̑̂ͪ͜r̷̡̺̩͎͗̊ȓ̹̰̗͛̕i̶͖̯̼̤͈͙̊ͣ̏͂̆͝e̸̳̥͖̤̻̫̖ͧ͂͑̑͐͜d̝͖͉̖̘̦̃͟ ͐̕͏͍͈͉͔̣a̧̻͚̮̱̠̥ͣ͂ͣͣ̂̄͌̚͞b̧̻̫̩͙̰̻ͫ̄̅̆ͬ̅͜o̷̡̥̭̼͔̺͇̟̝̽͑͊ͭ̓ͩͭͨu̎ͬ͞͏̩ͅt̷̸͓͓̳̱̲̤ͭͥͭ ͎̪͔̠͙͍͕̳̿_

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_Y̵̖̻͕̗͓ͫͥͫ͊̎͆͑͋o͈̦̬̺̰̅͋̒͒̃ͩ́u̘͙̬͓̮̞̓̽ͨ̿͘ͅ ̨̼̞̜͔ͮ̉́̅̀͝͞h̵̸̗̘̥̞̬̰̹̊̾̂̓ͨ̚-̶̨̝̙̞̟͈͂̂ͨ͛͗ͪͪ͝v̱̭͕͇̳̼̩͛̋͆̔̃̒e̶͉̲̬̟̙͇̪͑̿̓ͦͫ͆ ̘̹̰̜ͤ̌͝ṫ̷͎̭̗̙͓̺̲ͩ̈ͬ̂̚o̷̯̤̝͖͌ͫ̈͜.̱̰͇̜̣̾ͩ͑ͪͬ̉̎͋.̍̎̈̈ͤ͏͍̳̻̥͍̠͇̤͡.̷̛̹̫̥̺̜͕̬ͩ̓ͮͩ ̨̨̞̜͚̙̜ͩ́̈́̽ͦͪͥf̰̠̹̓̿͒̍͐̆̆̑a̘̭̳̱̰͓̻͉͗̓ͭ̀ͣ̎̚͜s̛̮̭̟͕̆͂ͬ̌̑͂͛t̞͓̼̯̰̞͇̯͒̅̿̋e̵̢̬͕͆ͪͥͧ̃͑r͈̪̥̤̻̈̎̚ ̵̛͙̜̜͍͍͓̘̂ͩͨ͊ͯ͊ͮ̔͑͜n͔̒͐ͩ́͆̓̾_ͯ͏̶̧̠͎͈̰̟͍̝͙͈_̬̮̼̘͉͖͙̦̪ͨ̐ͯ̿͒͆͒̉͒̕͞t̺̖̟̟̓̿̕̕ ̩̣̼̫̘̹̭̙̯̒ͪ̎͝t̳̳̃̿̌̒͊̐͆i̶̵̤͇͚̤̯͉̯ͨm̨͈̪̟̫̻͇̲͓̹ͪ͂͆̈́͝͠e̯̹̮̻͊̈́̅̈́̐̅ͧ̓͡.̋ͣ͒҉̺͕_


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